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SIGMA PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

10 Van Buren Street, Chicago, 111. 



WORKS BY DENTON J. SNIDER 

ON THE KIISTDERGARDEK 



1. Froebel's Mother Play- Songs. 

A Commentary (new edition), complete 
with new introduction, . . . . $1.25 

2. The Psychology of Froebel's Play Gifts. 

This book with the preceding one, un- 
folds the two main elements of Froebel's 
system, 1.25 

3. The Life of Frederick Froebel. 

An entirely new life of the founder of the 

Kindergarden, 1.25 



Sxider's Psychologies: 

1. Psychology and the Psychosis, . . .2.00 

2. The Will and Its World, .... 2.00 

3. The Psychology of Institutions {in preparation) . 
Elizabeth Harrison's Works on the Kindergarden : 

1. In Storyland, 1.25 

2. Two Children of the Foothills, . . . 1.25 



The Life 



OF 



Frederick Froebel, 



Founder of the Kindergarden. 



BY 

DENTON J. SNIDER, 

Co-fouhder of the Chicago Kindergarden Colleg*. 



SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., 
Chicago, lo Van Burbn St. 



Library of Conflre«a| 

1 WO Copies Received ! 
NOV 23 1900 

<^ Copyright «i4ry 



No 



SECOND conr 

Odivorad to 

ORDER DIVISION 
PFH 18 1900 



■^b^' 



Copyright by D. J. Snider, 1900. 



Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 

216 Pine Street, 

ST. LOUIS. 



To 
Miss Klizahetl\ Harrison 
ar\d 
Mrs. J. W. Grouse, 
My associates in foilridirig arid carrying 
forward ttie CY\icaqo Kinder- 
garden College. 

Tl\e fliitlior. 
Clriicago, 

10 Yan Buren St., 
HUg., 1900. 



TABLE OF CONTEN^TS. 



Page 

Introductory vii 

Book I. The Youth Froebel ... 1 

Chap. I. Early Schooling . , . 1 

Chap. II. Froebel at Jena ... 20 

Chap. III. In Pursuit of a Vocation. 65 

Book II. The Schoolmaster Froebel. 84 
Chap. I. Froebel as Teacher and 

Pupil 88 

Chap. II. Froebel as Principal . . 143 

Chap. III. The Principal Dethroned. 214 
Chap. IV. Expatriation .... 

Book III. The Kindergardner Froebel 274 
Chap. I. The Kindergarden Con- 
ceived 279 

Chap. II. The Kindergarden Real- 
ized 294 

Chap. III. The Kindergarden Propa- 
gated 333 



INTR OD UC TOR Y, 

Not long before the close of his days, Froebel 
expressed himself thus to his most intimate 
friend, Middendorf : *' I recognize my life to be 
a unity through and through ; it has been long 
since any such life has appeared among men; 
only under unusual circumstances has it been 
able to work itself out to its completeness." 
One great whole he conceives it to be with each 
part joined to the other by a line of inner con- 
nection ; thus his principle of education was the 
deep underlying principle of his life, which he 
drew out of himself and made real in his voca- 
tion. 

Moreover, he holds strongly to the idea of de- 
velopment, the self -unfolding of the human spirit 
into or toward perfection. The doctrine which 
he applies to the child is to be applied to his own 
biography, for that doctrine is at bottom the 
true movement of his own soul, as it realizes 
itself in the events of his career. His life will 
not only illustrate his principle of the unfolding 
of the child but will be seen to be the very center 
and source of that principle ; from beginning to 
end it shows a man's own spiritual evolution pro- 
jecting itself into his educational work. Inner 
unity, inner development, and inner connection — 

(vii) 



viii THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

the trinity of Froebel's spirit — will reveal 
themselves in his biography, which thereby be- 
comes the best commentary on all that he has 
done. 

For the purpose of keeping this fundamental 
fact before the reader's mind, we shall throw his 
life into three grand sweeps or masses which in- 
dicate the chief stages of his own development 
as well as of his work. 

I. The Youth Froebel. This period lies be- 
tween his birth and his first teaching at Frank- 
fort on the Main (1782-1805). It is a time of 
elementary training, of seeking a vocation, of 
wandering from place to place, and of trying 
many things. Also it is a time of strong, often 
of harsh discipline ; a time of inner fermentation 
and change ; an epoch of all sorts of possibilities 
floating into and out of his life — we may call him 
now the potential Froebel. 

II. The Schoolmaster Froebel. This pe- 
riod embraces the years in which he is of the 
school, as instructor, tutor, principal (1805— 
1835 ) . His vocation is now clear, he knows him- 
self to be an educator. It is the middle period, 
preparing him for the kindergarden. His school 
will succeed, then fail; he will have to leave it, 
and to leave Germany, till he be completely sep- 
arated from it and from all his former work. A 
period of development, yet of separation and 
estrangement from what he had been and had 



INTR OD UC TOR Y. IX 

done ; he is shaken off from the school-idea and 
made ready for the kindergarden . 

III. The Kixdergardner Froebel. In 
Switzerland the kindergarden is conceived, the 
idea is begotten and born there, but is realized in 
Germany at Blankenburg. This period extends 
from 1835 to 1852, to the end of Froebel's life, 
and it may be called the evolution of the kinder- 
garden, whicii, however, in a wider sense, was 
evolving all his days. 

Many heroisms we witness on his part and that 
of his followers. A strange thread of persecu- 
tion, with counter-strokes of destiny, runs 
through his career, often giving to it an JEschy- 
lean trao:ic tinge. A man of sufferino^ and of 
perverse fatalities, yet of courage and enthusiasm 
unparalleled ; he has the extraordinary power of 
imparting to his disciples a religious fervor of 
faith and a sacred devotion to his cause. While 
here, his life was of the humblest; no station, no 
great place in the public eye, no patronage of the 
mighty fell to his lot ; still it looks now as if his 
may turn out the most important life in the 
history of modern education. 

My purpose is to show Froebel the educator, 
and specially Froebel the founder of the kinder- 
garden. But at the same time I shall try to 
reveal Froebel the man, in all his strength and 
weakness — an ideal soul of transcendent insight 
and consecration to a noble cause, yet burdened 



X THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

with his full share of foibles, follies, wrongs, 
and even sins. Only thus can I bring to light 
his truly human greatness, which must be seen 
in his rising: above his own limits. No man was 
ever smitten more frequently or more remorse- 
lessly by the fates of his own deed than Froebel , 
and no man ever rose oftener to his feet again 
after the blow. Nothing could put him down, 
not even himself. Thus his life will have its 
lesson parallel with his educational doctrine. 






CHAPTER FIRST. 

EARLY SCHOOLING, 

A very important school Froebel deemed his 
own life, to whose past course he often returned 
to take his bearino^s for the future. In writinoj 
his autobiography, he says his aim was *' to trace 
the connection between my earlier and later life," 
in Avhich connection he firmly beheved as the 
inner bond of all his days. This return upon 
himself showed that *' my earlier hfe was for me 
the means of understanding my later " — he had 
always to go back in order to oo forward. And 

(1) 



2 TUE LIFE OF FRO E BEL. 

more deeply still, "my own indmdual life be- 
came to me the key of the universal life " in 
man, in humanity. (1) 

Life, then, has been his true university, to 
which he has often to come back for a course of 
study in himself — the very hardest lesson to 
learn, and sometimes never learned at all. With 
this brief overture faintly sounding in our ears, 
we may catch the key-note of all that follows. 

The present chapter carries the j^outh Froe- 
bel forward till he enters Jena University when 
he was seventeen years old. Infancy, childhood, 
boyhood are here set forth, Avitli their possibili- 
ties, which become realities in later life. The 
first stage of the potential Froebel, as we have 
named him in this Book ; it shows the far-off un- 
conscious preparation of the child for the work 
of the old man. 

I. 

The Child at Home. 

Friedrich Wilhelm Auo^ust Froebel has re- 
corded that he was born on the 21st day of April, 
1782, in Oberweissbach, a village of the Thur- 
ingian Forest, belonging to the small principal- 
ity of Schwarzburg-Eudolstadt, Germany. His 
father was pastor of a district containing 5,000 
souls, scattered among six or seven villages, the 
care of which kept him very busy, without much 



EABLY SCHOOLING. 3 

time to look after his own children, had he been 
so inclined. His family is said to have originally 
come from Holland, though it seems to have lost 
all connection with that country. (2) 

Frederick (thus we shall call him henceforth) 
at the age of nine months lost his mother, an 
event which had an important influence upon his 
whole life. The man who above all others has 
glorified the calling of motherhood, had no 
mother himself, even in the farthest reach of his 
memory ; once only in an early letter he speaks 
of her " last loving look." But her real ab- 
sence caused him to create her presence in an 
ideal mother who is the central figure of his 
greatest book, the Mother Play-songs, where she 
undergoes a kind of saintly canonization, while 
the father in that same book appears twice or 
thrice just to show his superfluity. The picture 
of the mother often returned to Froebel in later 
years ; in fact, she becomes the educational cen- 
ter of the last period of his life, in which he, an 
old man, goes back to his infancy and erects the 
greatest of all monuments to the another whom 
he never knew. 

Having no mother and almost no father, he 
falls to the care of servants and of his brothers 
who are older. Four of these brothers are men- 
tioned, two of whom, August (who died early) 
and Traugott (who became a physician), have 
little to do with his career ; but the other two, 



4 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

Christian and Christopli, are deeply woven into 
his hfe. Especially did he love Christoph who 
both brothered him and mothered him, protecting 
him outwardly and comforting him inwardly amid 
his trials. These trials culminated in a new per- 
son entering the household — the step-mother. 
The pastor took a second wife, who soon had a 
son of her own, and who became not only indif- 
ferent but averse to her little step-son. Such 
were the circumstances of the child Froebel as he 
entered the kinders^arden aoe which he will 
never forget, and which will impel him, as his 
final terrestrial work, to come to the rescue of 
those suffering as he did, whereby he becomes a 
kind of redeemer for the little child. 

Frederick was now about four years old, and 
often quite alone in the world. Through his 
step-mother's conduct he was isolated from the 
family, and made to feel that he was a stranger 
in his own home. Apparently his older brothers 
were absent 'a good deal from the new household, 
so that he had no longer their sympathy and 
protection. So he early turned inward and kept 
company with himself, whence came the habit of 
introspection Avliich went with him through life. 
The proverbial character of the step-mother was 
repeated in Froebel' s experience, he was the 
boy Cinderella of the German fairj'-tale. Still, 
while almost driven from the home, he was strictly 
forbidden to go beyond the yard and garden, 



EARLY SCHOOLING. 6 

inclosed by fences, hedges and houses, of the 
parental dwelling. Not only alone, but also in a 
prison the child has to occupy his young days. 

Thus his expanding life seemed to be shut in 
on all sides by lofty mountain-walls, which he 
could not climb over. An inner protest against 
all limitation and prescription could not help ris- 
ino^ within him, a tendency Avhich will leave its 
stronsT mark on his future thouo^ht and life. 
Moreover, in the last period of his activity he will 
return to his own kindergarden age, and will do 
his share toward rendering impossible forever 
such treatment as he received during his child- 
hood. The isolation and suffering of these early 
years had no small part in calling forth his grand 
remedial deed, the kinder o^arden. So even as a 
little child we see Froebel in trainins^ for the 
work of his old age, and furthermore we catch a 
glimpse of that thread of " connection between 
my earlier and later life ' ' on which he puts so 
much stress. 

The child ^rew forward to school ao^e. The 
religious character of the family was of the strict 
old-German orthodox Protestant type, and was 
in accordance with all the other restraints put 
upon the boy. Here too rose a secret protest, 
against the pastor as well as against the father — 
a protest which we can trace w^inding through his 
future career in his relations to the established 
church. One thinty is certain : not for the world 



6 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

will he follow the calling of his parent and be a 
clergyman; still he will choose an allied vocation, 
for him the deeper and more compelling, that of 
educator. Moreover, Ave shall see later that 
under his influence his two great friends and 
co-workers, Middendorf and Langethal, had their 
careers deflected from theology into pedagogy. 

The father, however, taught him to read, 
though with great difficulty, for the one was not 
a good teacher and the other was not a good 
pupil. One result was that the father regarded 
Frederick as a hopelessly stupid boy, totally un- 
worthy of an university education, and the son 
for a time shrank back into himself with a dis- 
belief in his own talent. Froebel confesses that 
it was hard work for him to learn to read, and 
this comports with what we know of him later. 
Human speech was his stumbling block, in his 
own mother-tonsrue he never could utter himself 
adequately, his best was another kind of expres- 
sion. Over and over asi^ain he tried his hand at 
Latin without success; grammar, the organiza- 
tion of speech, he could never make his own 
fully, as we see from his frequent tirades about 
this study, as well as from many a peculiar turn 
in writings. 

From his father's instruction young Frederick 
passed to the village schools where he acquired 
not very thoroughly the rudiments of an ordi- 
nary education. From his own account we have 



EABLY SCHOOLING. 7 

to infer that he belonged to the class of bad 
boys. He was defiant, disobedient, and told 
falsehoods to get out of scrapes; he claims, how- 
ever, that he was made naughty by being always 
misjudged and mistreated. As he had the name 
of an imp, he was determined to have the game. 
His was a destructive nature : "I destroyed 
evervthino^ around me, whatever I wished to in- 
vestigate." Very significant too is it to observe 
by what means he sought afterwards to overcome 
just this destructive spirit in the child through 
the kinder o^arden. 

So we see the boy in a secret rebellion against 
the established order in home, school, and 
church; the step-mother ruled his world, and 
his business was to thwart her in every possible 
way. She was the Law and the Gospel ; could 
the child help turning against the Law and the 
Gospel? Still he had love in his heart for his 
brother Christoph, in whom he seemed to see re- 
embodied his true mother. He records that this 
brother, explaining to him once the sexual differ- 
ence in plant-life, opened the door of the great 
temple of Nature, into which his longing spirit 
entered and found peace, remaining there with 
few interruptions to the end of his days. 

But what means this noise of hot discussion 
which the child hears between father and brother 
Christoph? The latter has just returned from 
the University of Jena, where he has been study- 



8 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

ing theology, and has brought back new views 
which the old pastor deems the quintessence of 
heresy and damnable innovation. Of course the 
boy listens with intense eagerness and under- 
stands the general bearing of the dispute, since 
it lay just in the line of his deepest experience. 
He cannot help taking sides with his brother, 
whom he loves, and who in addition now voices 
the secret protest and aspiration of his own soul. 
And that University of Jena — what a wonderful 
ideal place it must be, with its freedom in con- 
trast to this cramped existence ! Dimly a hope 
has been born in his heart that he, the dull boy, 
will yet see Jena, in spite of father and step- 
mother, who have thrust him down into the 
limbo of everlasting stupidity. 

Meanwhile he has reached the age of ten years, 
and his prisoned spirit is longing for some re- 
lease. " I wished to escape from this unhappy 
state of things, my elder brothers I considered 
fortunate in being away from home. ' ' Christoph 
again appears at the right moment and gives to 
the despairing boy consolation and protection — 
a providential appearance vividly recalling their 
common mother as the guardian angel over both 
of them. 

Still another providential appearance on the 
maternal side comes down into Frederick's life 
at this time, that of uncle Hoffman, a clergy- 
man of Stadt-Ilm, and brother of the deceased 



EAELY SCHOOLING. 9 

mother. This kind-hearted man, on a visit to 
Oberweissbach, evidently saw the whole situation ; 
when he returns home, he begs by letter that the 
boy Frederick be sent to him for an indefinite 
stay. The father readily consented, and the 
step-mother surely would not object. And now 
we may see with sympathetic glance the youth 
springing across the paternal threshold in uncon- 
cealed joy, and leaving behind him that whole 
step-motherly world with eager face turned 
toward a new home. 

And yet we cannot leave the step-mother with- 
out a sympathetic glance. Poor woman! w^hat 
an immortality for that simple Thuringian coun- 
try-girl who could not get along with her 
step-son! For he happened to be Frederick 
Froebel, the greatest benefactor of the little 
child that ever lived, and he has fully reported 
her ill treatment of him as a little child. The 
result is her name has gone through the wide 
world, and has descended thus far through time, 
and is destined to go down through untold ages, 
leaving behind it a line of sighs and tears and low 
maledictions from thousands upon thousands of 
tender-hearted kindergardners who read his 
story. Dear me! what a destiny for a woman, 
who violates the trust criven her, neoflecting to 
obey the call, when it has come to her, to be a 
mother to a motherless child ! 

Still let us in fairness think of her difficulties. 



10 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Not an easy position is hers ; the child has 
neighbors, and rehitives, and ekier brothers, who 
cannot quite let him forget that he has a step- 
mother. Every word and act of hers are sure 
to be prejudged, and her every correction of the 
child, though deserved, is apt to be ascribed to 
her want of maternal feeling for her ward. And 
thou, my reader, Avho art some gentle kinder- 
gardner probably, wilt do well to feel a throb of 
sympathy with that step-mother, for thou mayst 
some time have to stand in her place. 

Now we can turn to our boy Frederick, who 
has by this time arrived at his uncle's in Stadt- 
Ilm, out of the reach of his step-mother, which 
event took place toward the end of the year 
1792. 

n. 

The Boy at Uncle Hoffmann's. 

Very different was the atmosphere of the two 
households ; in the one was severity, in the other 
kindness ; the father misunderstood and dis- 
trusted his son, the uncle recognized and trusted 
his nephew. There ^ restraint, here freedom; 
there a step-mother spurned him from her pres- 
ence, here a motherly spirit for the first time 
took him up into its bosom. When he passed 
outside of his new home, the mountain-walls 
which before penned him in had vanished as in a 
dream; ** I could go into my uncle's gardens if 



EARLY SCHOOLING. 11 

I liked, but I was also at liberty to roam all over 
the neighborhood." Great indeed was the dif- 
ference between here and there, so great that 
the boy at once began to pass from protest and 
the deepest tension of spirit into harmony with 
his enwoning world. 

Of course he must go to school, that was 
probably a chief object of the uncle in taking 
the boy to himself. He had always been a soli- 
tary youth, depending on himself chiefly for 
societ}' ; but now he is suddenly plumped into a 
living roistering mass* of school-boys, forty in 
number, of his own age. He must henceforth 
associate with his fellows and take part in their 
sports. He was deeply humiliated to find that 
he was physically unable to cope with the rest in 
strength or agility. But he bravely began to 
overco'me his defects, and made the most of his 
opportunities. Confidence in himself he was 
getting after long suppression; surely there is 
something in the lad, if he can thus struggle with 
and mount above his limits. And all his life he 
will give great prominence to the physical devel- 
opment of the pupil, remembering his own 
insufiicient training in this respect. 

Reconciliation seems now to be the trend of 
our Frederick und^r the lovins; care of uncle 
Hoffmann ; reconciled he is becoming with the 
home, with the school, — yes, with the church. 
*'I especially enjoyed the hours devoted to re- 



12 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

ligious instruction; " he delighted in the ser- 
mons of his uncle, which were '' mild, gentle and 
full of sweet charity; " somewhat different, evi- 
dently, from those of his father. His heart 
would melt and he would burst into tears when 
the lesson *' touched upon the life, the work, 
and the character of Jesus." He resolved to 
lead a similar life. 

Very deep run these notes of harmony with 
the established order around him, in striking con- 
trast to the discords of his previous life. He is 
now becoming truly ethical, drinking in from his 
surroundino's those virtues which form the tissue 
of all character, and which mount up for their 
highest source to the institutional world. 

He ogives an account of the school trainino^ at 
Stadt-Ilm, the residence of uncle Hoffmann. 
Reading, writing, arithmetic and reHgion (the 
four Rs, in this case), were "the subjects best 
ti^ught; " but Latin comes in for censure, 
*' being miserably taught and worse learned." 
Still, from its study he got something, namely, 
that he could get nothing ' ' by such a method of 
teaching." So he blames the method, but Latin 
grammar is Latin grammar under any instruction, 
and will not put down its carefully adjusted bars 
to let Froebel jump in with a little playful leap. 
But *' arithmetic was a favorite study of mine," 
and in general he had a quantitive or mathemat- 
ical bent in his mind. Music lessons, too, he 



EARLY SCHOOLING. 13 

had, in singing and in playing the piano, " but 
without result." We are, however, inclined to 
think that the musical side of his nature received 
a very considerable development at this time ; 
his own mood and his environment fostered it, 
expressed it in a way, though he may not have 
learned much about the theory of music. Cer- 
tainly a musical accompaniment runs through his 
life and his work to the very close, which harmo- 
nious attunement naturally belongs to his uncle's, 
and not to his father's, surroundings. 

As to discipline, he claims that he and his 
school-fellows lived " without control," yet none 
of us were ever ' ' guilty of a really culpable 
action." Good boys, indeed, good by nature, 
not made bad by man : a note ha\dng a sound 
like that of The Education of 3Ian, which 
indeed belongs, in its composition, to the same 
period as the Autobiography. 

On a similar line note the following contrast : 
'* "\Ye had two teachers, one of whom was strict 
and pedantic, the other was kind-hearted and 
free," i. e. he let us do as we pleased. Result: 
*' the first never had any iniluence over us," 
though he sought to make us accomplish some- 
thincr, while " the second could do with us what- 
ever he pleased," though he did not please to 
make us do anything. Then note another con- 
trast, not between teachers now, but between 
preachers : " My uncle, the principal minister of 



14 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Stiidt-Ilm, was gentle and soft-hearted," never 
reproving anybody; but *' the other minister was 
rigid even to harshness, often scolding and order- 
ing us about," just like my father at Oberweiss- 
bach — let him be confounded (the minister of 
course, not the father). 

Such was the spirit of re-action in the boy 
against authority, which had been, no doubt, 
formal, and sometimes harsh. This spirit will 
remain long with Froebel, he will carry it into his 
school, at Keilhau, where it will give rise to one of 
the deepest contradictions of his life, under which 
indeed that school will sink till it passes out of 
his hands. For Froebel as principal will assert 
his authority in the most absolute, yea, tyrrani- 
cal manner, but will resent all authority and pre- 
scription when exercised by the subordinate 
teacher over the pupil. The hardest lesson of 
his life will be to find out what to do with the 
established and the prescribed, and how to make 
them not only agree mth, but to contribute to, 
freedom. But this is a chapter which lies far 
ahead, though it has its roots in the period which 
we are considering just now. 

The time of his school education drew to a 
close, which was fitly celebrated and rounded out 
by his Confirmation. For this impressive cere- 
mony he was prepared by his uncle, who thus 
brought him into union with the Church, from 
which he never afterward formally separated. 



EARLY SCHOOLING. 15 

Still this in^stitution had in him from now onward 
two representatives, quite opposite, yet both his 
kindred, both of tliem pastors, his father and his 
uncle. Thus the religious dualism of his Life lay 
in his blood, coming to him by inheritance from 
both parents, of whom his heart leaned unswerv- 
ingly to his mother, who had now become to 
him a deiinite ideal iniaoe throuoh his uncle 
Hoffmann as well as through his brother Chris- 
topli. But the other strand of his nature, the 
paternal, claimed him as heir too ; he could be 
rigid, imperious, yea, despotic almost to the sac- 
rifice of the person. Whereof much hereafter. 
But he has now finished, the seal of manhood is 
given by the rite of Confirmation, which is ac- 
knowled«:ed to have a natural connection with the 
period of adolescence. Out of home and the 
school into the battle of the world is the transi- 
tion, for which battle, however, he must be pre- 
pared. Accordinolv we are now to see Froebel 
beoinnino' his search for a vocation, and ofoino^ 
throuoh his first trial therein. 

c 

III. 

What Shall be Done with the Boy? 

Such is the difl&cult question now presenting 
itself to Frederick and his father. After five 
years' absence he is home again for the purpose 
of makinof a new start in a new direction. Away 



16 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

from pai;ent and from uncle he is to grapple with 
the practical world ; he must learn some busi- 
ness—What? 

It is settled that he is not to study at the 
University and follow one of the learned profes- 
sions — settled it was, he declares, by his step- 
mother, who was afraid that her own boy, Carl 
Poppo, might not otherwise have the means from 
the paternal estate for a University education. 
Carl Poppo, now a lad of eleven (born in 1786), 
had shown decided ability, at least to the eye of 
his mother, and was an emphatic contrast to his 
older half-brother, Frederick, whom all knew to 
be a stupid boy, unworthy and really unsuscept- 
ible of any higher training than he had already 
attained. 

Here again rose a secret protest, and the dim 
resolution to thwart the step-mother's plan of 
keeping him away from the University. For 
the thought of Jena had entered deep into his 
mind, he had heard of it and the great men there 
all his life ; he loved to pore over the learned 
books of his brother Christoph with a vague 
longing for knowledge. He too was going to 
be a student of Jena some day — but how? At 
present no road seemed to lead thitherward, but 
let us work and wait for the future in one of 
her auspicious moods ; perhaps she may give us 
a surprise in this matter, as is her way often- 
times. 



EARLY SCHOOLING. 17 

But meanwhile something must be tried, for 
the father is urgent to get the boy settled and be 
done with him. Various positions were sug- 
gested, till one was found acceptable to all par- 
ties. Frederick in 1797, being fifteen years and 
a half old, was apprenticed to a forester, with 
whom he was to stay two years. 

The great fact during this period is the eager- 
ness with which he prosecuted his studies. He 
worked especially at botany, as a good oppor- 
tunity offered ; but mathematics and lano^uao^es 
were not neglected. He was left to himself a 
good deal, and used his spare time profitably ; 
living in the forest and contemplating plant-life, he 
entered into a religious communion with Nature, 
which displaced the religion of the Church, in 
part at least. 

Froebel puts stress upon the fact that during 
this time he first saw a drama, which was given 
by a company of strolling actors. The per- 
formance took strong hold upon him, for a while 
he seems to have been stage-struck. He sous^ht 
the acquaintance of the actors, and talked with 
them about their glorious profession ; ' ' perhaps 
I expressed a wish that I might become a mem- 
ber of such a company." But one of the actors 
told the misery of their life, and quite disillu- 
sioned him. Still the dramatic element was 
roused in him, and satisfied a certain need of his 
soul. It will remain with him in some form to 



18 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

the last; he will employ action for the purpose 
of education, and in the play-song he will create 
a little drama for the child. 

The period elapsed, the apprenticeship came 
to an end. The forester wished to retain him, 
but he* would not stay, having outgrown the 
business. Then came some trouble, the forester 
complained to the father, the step-mother echo- 
ing his bad opinion of the boy. But Frederick 
was able to clear himself of all charges, and to 
brine; home a counter accusation ao^ainst the for- 
ester, by invoking the help of brjother Christoph. 
The outcome is that our Frederick, now seven- 
teen years old, is again under the paternal roof, 
where he could not, however, feel very comfort- 
able. For that father had sent him off to the 
forester two years before with the following 
farewell : ' ' Never come back to me with any 
complaint, for I shall not listen to you, but con- 
sider you in the wrong beforehand." 

Again the question springs up in that house- 
hold : What shall be done with the boy, the 
naughty, superfluous boy? Parents are deter- 
mined not to do the right thing, for he is just 
the one of all the sons who oug^ht to be sent to 
the University, having in himself the deepest 
aspiration for learning. But he is set down as 
the family dunce by the father, and besides, as 
the bad boy by the step-mother. Incapable and 
unworthy of the IJniversity, declare the parents; 



EABLY SCHOOLING. 19 

SO let the other sons be educated at Jena, not 
Frederick the blockhead and general nuisance. 
But where now are those other sons, Traugott 
and Christ oph, and bright little Carl Poppo? 
All have vanished into the night of oblivion 
except when their names are passingly read in 
the flare of light flashed from the illuminated 
fame of their stupid brother. 

Such is the ironical game which Fate has 
started to play in that household, where just now 
reigns the grand puzzle : What shall be done 
with the boy? He has comeback again on our 
hands, that impossible boy, Fritz Froebel, a 
juvenile superfluity, if there ever was one. 
Wait; as the parents are at their wits' end, doing 
nothing, or bent on doing the wrong thing. Prov- 
idence who has work for the boy will take him in 
hand, and by the little turn of a petty event 
will suddenly whisk him forthright into the 
world — whither? To the University of Jena. 



CHAPTER SUCOJ^D, 

F ROE BEL AT JENA, 

111 the present chapter the object is to set 
forth, as fuUj as is now possible, the most im- 
portant period in Froebel's earlier life, namely 
his stay nt the University of Jena. It was truly 
his germinal epoch ; he received here more seed- 
thoughts for his future development than at any 
other time. He was young, being but seventeen 
years old when he first arrived, and he remained 
two years. Young, but very receptive and im- 
pressionable ; he seems not to have fully known 
how much he did take up into himself out of 
that Jena abode. 

At this time Jena with its University was the 
very center of the intellectual life of Germany. 
Nay, we may go further and say that it stood in 
(20) 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 21 

the heart of the mightiest spiritual movement of 
the last two centuries. The most splendid sun- 
burst in philosophy which the ages have wit- 
nessed, with the possible exception of that 
ancient one in Athens, was then taking place at 
Jena. A fe^\^ miles across the country lay 
Weimar, governed by the same ruler and con- 
trolled by the same spirit; there the greatest lit- 
erary movement of our modern era was in the 
process of fultillment. Art and science felt the 
same regenerating breath of a new epoch. 

Into this marvelous? creative energy of the time 
the boy Frederick Froebel is suddenly plunged at 
its fountain-head. Now we hold that he absorbed 
much of this spirit by living in its atmosphere 
and associatino: with the students. It was at Jena 
that he became deeply inoculated with the Teu- 
•tonic renascence which produced Goethe and 
Schiller in poetry ; Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and 
Hegel in philosophy ; Mozart and Beethoven in 
music. More truly was his the educational soul 
of this movement than that of any other man ; 
the spirit of Jena at this time Avas indeed the 
guiding principle, more or less unconscious, of his 
whole life, undoubtedly with many fluctuations. 

Froebel has not told us in his autobiographical 
writings, with any degree of completeness, what 
he obtained at Jena. For reasons to be hereafter 
stated, the University was a very unpleasant 
memory. Nor has any writer on Froebel within 



22 THE LIFE OF FliOEBEL. 

our knowledge adequately appreciated the impor- 
tance of this period in his spirit's history. (3) 
Accordingly it becomes the duty of the present 
biography at this point to reproduce Jena during 
the years 1799-1801, at least in a brief outline. 
For the spiritual nineteenth century opened just 
there more fully and brilliantly than at any other 
spot on the earth, and the youth Froebel was 
present during these two years . Yes , the simple- 
hearted Thuringian country -boy is there, an 
infant as it were, a very suckling on the breast of 
the Time-Spirit, whose mother's milk he is draw- 
ing in quite unconsciously, taking it up into the 
fiber of his beinsj that he become the educator of 
the new epoch, especially of the infants thereof. 
For such work is she rearing him with a peculiar 
maternal nurture, truly that of the creative genius, 
which she alone can foster ; not to be a learned 
man simply, not to be an erudite professor at the 
University delving in the library -dust of the past, 
is she training him, but to be a soldier of the 
future standing courageously in the front rank of 
the coming battle with the Powers of Darkness, 
the much-suffering man ! So, when the moment 
comes, she flings him from her breast at Jena with 
what seems an unmotherly harshness, such being 
usually her way of training her favored baby to 
his approaching task. But enough of this pro- 
logueing, let the youth himself now step 
forward. 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 28 

I. 

Arrival at Jena. 

Frederick, hfiving returned to the parental 
roof, was again in deep despondency. The 
wings of his spirit which had been for five years 
flutterino^ in tlie o^enial sunshine of his uncle's 
house and had spread out in free though solitary 
flight at the forester's, drooped and fell when he 
came into the presence of his father and his 
step-mother. But soon the unseen hand was ex- 
tended to him in his gloom ; he was sent on an 
errand to that place to which, above any other, 
he wished to gro and ouo^ht to ^o. 

His brother Traugott was studying medicine at 
Jena and needed money. Frederick, who had 
nothing special to do at home, was sent with 
the funds. Great must have been his rehef as 
he passed out of the door of his father's house 
bound for the University of which he had heard 
so much in the family. 

His favorite brother Christoph had studied there 
several years before this time, finishing his course 
in theology. This brother shared in the new 
spirit which had risen at Jena, and which was 
transforming the old ecclesiastical edifice. Hot 
discussions between the brother and the father — 
the latter clung to the old school of theology — 
Froebel had heard in his early boyhood. The 



24 THE LIFE OF FItOEBEL. 

names of Jena and Weimar and their famous men 
must have been known to him. With what an 
uplifted heart did he now walk into that Univer- 
sity town to his brother's quarters! 

From the first he felt the quickened intellectual 
life of the place, and longed to remain for awhile. 
His brother interceded with the father: only 
eight weeks till the close of the summer term ; 
let the bo}^ stay, he is so eager, and he can em- 
ploy the time profitably. The father gave his 
consent. Frederick took lessons in map-draw- 
ing, with a practical outlook upon his future 
calling. The time passed, he returned home 
with his brother. His step-mother sneeringly 
said : Now you can say that you have gone 
through the University. Somewhat similar was 
her remark to that of an American youth who 
had gone through College : I went in at the 
front door, and was shown out at the back door. 

But the boy was not to be deterred by a sneer ; 
he was determined to go back where " my spirit 
had been stimulated on many lines." He con- 
ferred with his father, who gave his consent if 
he were not called on for the means. Frederick 
possessed a small inheritance from his mother ; a 
portion of this, after some negotiation, he suc- 
ceeded in o:ettino^. So he is off once more for 
Jena, helped again, be it noted, to his true destiny 
by the secret outstretched hand of his mother 
bearing a little gift of money. 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 25 

A testimonial from his father attestins; his 
capacity for a certain course of studies procured 
liim matriculation without trouble. His certifi- 
cate called him *^ student of philosophy," which 
title produced upon his dreamy receptive nature 
a great impression, and gave " to my studies a 
liigher relation not before imagined." Often as 
a boy in his home he had heard from his elders 
tliat magic word pJulosopJnj, now the cardinal 
terni and fact at Jena, and he had obtained a 
lofty though vague conception of its meaning. 
The great Kantian movement was in full swing, 
and Fichte at Jena was its chief expositor, whom 
brother Christoph must have often heard and 
mentioned. And he, the cast-off boy, hitherto 
not deemed worthy of a University education, 
was now a ' ' student of philosophy ' ' at the 
University, in spite of father, step-mother, and 
seemingly of Fate itself. Very miraculous did 
it all seem to him. 

Still he did not attend the course on philos- 
ophy. He was to be a practical man, a for- 
ester, or farmer, or builder; he was regarded as 
less talented than his brothers, and so was not 
allowed to think of one of the learned profes- 
sions. The lectures which he heard were chiefly 
on Mathematics and Physics ; also he took a 
course on Architecture and Surveyino*. No theo- 
retical training was given him except a little in 
pure Mathematics. 



26 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Such was his formal, direct instruction at 
Jena ; but at the same time he was taking an in- 
formal, indirect course of instruction of far 
deeper importance. " Of philosophical doctrines 
only so much came to me," says he, " as the 
intercourse of life brought; " but the Jena air 
was full of philosophy, and the students at the 
dinner-table and in the beer-house discussed the 
great epoch making Idea. Froebel himself con- 
fesses : "Just through this intercourse (with 
students) a stimulus in many directions Avas im- 
parted to me." Really just this was the im- 
portant part of his instruction, though not laid 
down in the University curriculum, the part 
which determined his future. 

Some of his observations on his studies at 
Jena are interesting, as they indicate the later 
Froebel. "Always I had the power of seeing 
into geometric relations and those of planes w^ith 
ease and vividness ; it seemed to me inexplicable 
that every peasant should not understand them 
at once." Suggestive of his geometric bent 
which comes out so strongly in his kindergarden 
Gifts is this passage. The future mineralogist 
peeps forth in the following: " I loved minerals, 
and I took great pains to comprehend their 
nature," though without much result at this 
time. Whatever had unity or connection laid 
hold of him; Chemistry fascinated him through 
its doctrine of affinities, and Botany gave him 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 27 

much satisfaction, when ordered by his teacher's 
'* natural system of plants." 

Two ideas which this same teacher, whose 
name was Batsch, advanced, took strono^ hold of 
Froebel. Tlie one was ''the net-like interrela- 
tion of animals on all sides; " the second was 
that " the skeleton of the fish, of the bird, and of 
man is one and the same — that of man being 
the more developed type which all the lower 
forms are striving to realize." In this statement 
we hear an echo of Goethe's osteoloo^ical studies 
which had penetrated the University, and which 
were one of the most significant and prophetic 
preludes of the Darwinian doctrine of evolution. 
In the scientific circles of Germany the question 
has been much discussed: Was Goethe aDarwinist? 
So Froebel, apparently ignorant of its source, 
gives his response to the Weimar poet's insight, 
and is thus brought into secret touch with Goethe. 

Still Froebel has his sharp criticism of the 
University teaching. He complains that a good 
deal of it was disconnected, without inner rela- 
tion. He tests all by that one deepest standard 
of his own soul : unity, internal connection, the 
ordered Whole. He claims that he already as a 
boy perceived the defect in this respect at Jena. 
" Evervwhere, if I onlv saw the inner connection 
and unity, I felt the longing of my spirit and of 
my heart satisfied." But if he did not get this, 
the entire subject fell to naught. 



28 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

And now he sets down Avith joy the first real 
mark of recognition tliat he ever received, with 
one slight exception. His own father had be- 
littled his talent, and trampled npon his aspira- 
tion ; dreamy, absent-minded, fantastic, he was 
regarded as moon-struck if not exactly a moon- 
calf. But now he is recoo-nized to have some 
talent, he is invited to become a member of a 
scientific society, composed chiefly of meritorious 
students at the Universitv. Verv encourao^ino^ 
was this independent mark of esteem for the 
spirit-suppressed j^outh who had not at home 
been deemed worthy an University education. 

*' I received much at Jena," he says, *' but I 
ouoht to have ootten much more." Discontent 
he shows with his trainins^ there, when this state- 
ment was written (1827) ; but the fact must be 
emphasized that he received far more than he 
was aware of or perhaps was willing to acknowl- 
edge. He was drinking in the spirit which then 
was at work especially in that locality. 

So the question comes up : what was going on 
at Jena in those days, enveloping the j'oung 
Froebel in its atmosphere? To such a question 
the answer must now be set forth with some 
degree of fullness. (4) 



FBOEBEL AT JENA 29 

II. 

Philosophy at Jena. 

During the years 1799-1801, the period of 
Froebel's stay, the atmosphere of Jena Uni- 
versity was above all things philosophical. In 
fact these two years show the culmination and 
turning-point of a mighty movement of specula- 
tive thought, which to-day, one hundred ^^ears 
later, has not by any means spent itself. Phi- 
losophy, the coolest if not the coldest of dis- 
ciplines, began actually to grow hot, to turn 
tlamino^ red, and to set on fire its flabbiest 
adherents with a divine enthusiasm. 

The man who started this philosophic blaze was 
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who came to Jena in 
1793 and stirred up a great interest through his 
development of the Kantian system, one side of 
which, that of the Self, he unfolded and pushed 
to its last consequences in what is called subject- 
ive idealism, or the grand nullification of the 
external world.. This puts the supreme emphasis 
upon the individual Ego, making it a kind of cre- 
ator of the universe at first hand, and in its own 
immediate right. Prodigious was the response 
of the German Ego to such a flattering doctrine 
of itself; it began to seethe, to break forth 
eruptively in volcanic upheaval, and to assert its 
orioinal divine rio'ht of world-makino- which 
seemed just now to have been discovered. 



30 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

A most stimuljiting spirit was this Fichte", and 
preached a most stimuhitiiig gospel to his people, 
already charged to the full with all sorts of elec- 
trical possibilities. And he was an electrical 
man, with a battery in his Ego full of lightning, 
which gave a shock to all existing things, struck 
and singed, and burned a good many people, and 
finally himself. 

But his philosophy brought no peace, no unity 
to the seeking soul ; it called forth a universe full 
of struggling individuals without any objective 
order ; infinite microcosms infinitely stimulated, 
but no macrocosm to hold them in its law. A 
moral ideal was the highest which man could 
strive for — an ideal wholly internal and 
personal. 

Here gapes wide the deepest chasm in the 
Teutonic soul, the chasm between the Real and 
the Ideal. It existed before, but Fichte hunted 
it up, pointed it out, pried it open, saying, 
*' Look, there it is, that is you, my dear country- 
men." He proclaims that the Ego builds its own 
house, the outer environment is what we make 
it; Self is the distinctive, the only true thing in 
existence. Every man lives in his own world, 
being not only world-governor but world-maker. 
But what if these worlds get to colliding, as they 
are sure to do? Well, just that is the trouble 
which is now upon him. 

It is no wonder that tunmlt followed the foot- 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 31 

steps of Fichte, tumult of disciples, and of oppo- 
nents. Wherever he went, he bore with him a 
whirlwind — which seemed a part of his person- 
ality. A great strife arose concerning his athe- 
ism, for God himself seemed to vanish into the 
philosopher's Ego, which out of itself could 
create everything. In the summer of 1799 he 
had to quit Jena and went to Berlin. Earlier in 
the same year young Froebel had come to the 
University, and he nmst have heard the din of 
the conflict risino^ from hot discussion amono; the 
students, and he may have witnessed the depart- 
ure of Fichte himself amid the huzzahs of friends, 
and the hisses of foes. 

So it came that the electrical philosopher was 
struck by his own lightning, which he had en- 
gendered out of his Ego, and which whirled him 
from the scene of his early triumph. A head- 
strong uncompromising man, defiant of Heaven 
and Earth, which indeed he had reduced to 
a mere excretion of his own brain; he had a 
Self which accepted nothing but itself in this 
universe, and which to be true to its own doc- 
trine, had to assert itself against any and all 
others. He rose to the point of daring author- 
ity and adding a menace, that authority which 
gave him his place and supported him. Olympian 
Goethe, minister of the Duke of AVeimar, sought 
to calm him, to protect him in his place, and so 
winked at his outbreaks, wishing to retain such 



32 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

an electrical genius at the University — very rare 
in such places. But Fichte became more reck- 
less, and giving way to his fiery temper, made a 
threat ao^ainst the orovernment ; then the Zeus of 
Weimar, rising in majesty and voicing the author- 
ity of the Gods, spoke the memorable words : 
'* The State cannot let itself be threatened " — 
and Fichte had to go. 

From Jena he went to Berlin, having strongly 
experienced that there was something valid in the 
world besides his own Ego. Considerably soft- 
ened, yet carrying his whirlwind with him, he 
enters upon a new career at the Prussian capital, 
lecturing, writing books, rousing with patriotic 
addresses the sleeping Teutonic folk-spirit to 
resist Napoleon. This influence Froebel will feel 
when he comes to Berlin a dozen years later, and 
will march forth as a soldier to help put down the 
Latin aggressor. His two chief companions and 
friends, Middendorf and Langethal, both of 
whom went with him to Keilhau, were students 
of Fichte, and were deeply tinged with this phi- 
losopher's idealism. Nor must we omit to note 
the record which has been handed down, that 
Wilhelmine Hoffmeister, Froebel' s future spouse, 
was "a pupil of Fichte and Schleiermacher." 
Thus all of the members of the company here- 
after assembled in the school of Keilhau, have a 
line of spiritual descent reaching back to Fichte. 

In a number of ways, therefore, Froebel is 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 33 

connected with this philosopher. One more edu- 
cational fact may be noted : Fichte will be 
among the first and strongest promulgators of 
universal education, and will lend all the might 
of his stimulating eloquence to scatter the seeds 
of Pestalozzi's great reform of instruction. 
Hereafter we shall see Froebel drinking from the 
same fountain, and making himself the spiritual 
successor of the noble Swiss educator. Then, 
too, the Komantic movement, which had a pro- 
found and lastino^ influence over Froebel and his 
work, has its roots in Fichte's philosophy. 

Still it is another Jena philosopher with whom 
Froebel shows the deepest kinship. This is 
Schelling, who succeeded Fichte's influence at 
Jena and even surpassed it, in anew philosophical 
development. Schelling had come to Jena in the 
year 1798, a young man whose genius ripened 
early ; he was at this time only 23 years old, 
but had already shown the stuff he was made of 
by his writings. This same year he had pub- 
lished his book On the World- Soid, in which he 
seeks to explain philosophically the organism of 
Nature. A young man of great promise; 
Goethe, always spying out from his Weimar 
Olympus some gifted professor for his Uni- 
versitv, has gone to Tiibinoen and secured him. 

Schellino; in his earlier writinors had been an 
ardent disciple of Fichte, but now he begins to 
strike out into a path of his own. Alongside of 

3 



34 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Fi elite's Ego he places Nature, which has also a 
right to be considered as a portion of the uni- 
verse, though it was neglected if not despised by 
Fichte. So to the subject Schelling joins the 
object, the physical world, which he sees to be 
everywhere interpenetrated by a Self, and 
ordered by a Self, which order it is the phi- 
losopher's function to set forth. Thus Schel- 
ling becomes the founder of a philosophy of 
Nature, which is the strong sympathetic bond 
between him and Froebel. 

In the year 1800 Schelling published his chief 
work called Tlie System of Transcendental 
Idealism^ the most complete and best organized 
of all his writings, which are, in general, a sud- 
den, spontaneous gathering of disconnected in- 
sights, often of great beauty and depth. Like 
Froebel he shows but little organic power in 
unfolding his theme. The mentioned book was 
the fruit of his lectures which were given during 
the preceding years, and produced an extraordi- 
nary ferment among the Jena students, who were 
heard discussing them on all sides. The aspir- 
ing rustic youth, our Frederick, listened eagerly 
to these discussions, took their meaning into his 
very soul, though he did not regularly attend 
Schelling' s lectures. 

Without wading into metaphysical depths over 
our heads, let us see if we cannot grasp Schel- 
ling' s fundamental thouo^ht, as it influenced 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 35 

Froebel. In general, Schelling beholds the pro- 
cess of the Eofo movinor throu2:h and orojanizing 
all the forms of Nature. Says he: " The Sys- 
tem of Nature is at the same time the System of 
our own Mind." More subtly he declares that 
" Nature is visible Spirit, and Spirit is invisible 
Nature." From Schelling comes the Eomantic 
idea that Nature is a vast work of art, and that 
God is supremely the artist or creative genius, 
whose function is to produce the beautiful world. 
God is the prototype of the mundane artist, who 
is the hioiiest worker on Earth, as the Lord is in 
Heaven. Hence Art, in Schelling' s system, is 
the supreme spiritual attainment of man. 

The reader of Froebel is aware of his persist- 
ent pounding on the inner connection of things, 
which indeed is his primal standard of judging 
every work and every person. Very like him 
sounds the following passage from Schelling: 
** Our. spirit strives for unity in the system of 
its knowledge ; it cannot endure to have a special 
principle forced upon itself for every single 
phenomenon, and it believes itself only to 
behold Nature there where in the greatest variety 
of appearances it finds the greatest simplicity of 
law, and in the most lavish display of effects the 
most careful economy of means." Likewise 
Froebel' s well-known law of the union of 
opposites may have been first suggested by 
Schelling' s Philosophy of Identity (^Identitdts- 



36 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Ph2'Joso2)hie) , though found long since in many 
philosophies, especially among the old Greeks. 

(5) 

Incessant was the buzz of talk in Jena town 

about Schellino^'s new revelation of Nature. 
During the two years of Froebel's stay this ex- 
citement was at its height, always roused anew 
by some fresh lecture, article or booklet of the 
master. In such an atmosphere lived our eager 
Frederick, impressionable youth that he was, and 
drank down, quite unconsciously, its spiritual 
contents. Later we shall see his own construc- 
tion of Nature, undoubtedly derived from Schel- 
ling, which he sets forth in The Education of 
Man. But chiefly here is the origin of that 
symbolism of Nature, which is so conspicuous in 
Froebel throughout his whole career, which 
others will employ in Science, Art, Poetry, Lit- 
erature, but which he will turn to its highest use 
in Education, even the Education of the Little 
Child. 

Froebel, therefore, shows one line of develop- 
ment out of Schelling at the time when the latter 
held the doctrine of the identity of Nature and 
Spirit, or, as it is sometimes expressed, the 
indifference of subject and object. Schelling 
unfolded afterwards into mysticism, and him we 
need not further follow. But another line of 
development out of Schelling, the supremely phi- 
losophic one, we must mention, none other than 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 37 

Hegel, who, once the disciple, now breaks loose 
from the master and begins to construct his own 
system of thought, the most colossal and com- 
pact which the world has yet seen. Hegel was^ 
far longer in maturing than Schelling, was five 
years older in age, yet a good ten j^ears younger 
in development. In fact, Schelling never ripened 
in the sense Heo^el did, the former being: the 
youthful prodigy in philosopiiy and remaining 
such all his life, full of sudden, marvelous, brill- 
iant metamorphoses, but not w^ell-ordered. 

In 1801, the year in which Froebel left, Hegel 
(born in 1770), also appeared at Jena, drawn 
from a distance into the marvelous creative mael- 
strom, which had the power of sucking into itself 
every intellectual germ of the future . But Hegel 
never produced any direct influence upon Froebel 
whose cast of mind was far more sympathetic 
with Schelling, though the latter 's influence and 
doctrines were chiefly imbibed by Froebel through 
the electrical atmosphere of Jena, so that he 
hardly knew himself what he was getting. Not 
through books so much as through daily inter- 
course and conversation — which is the old way 
and in many respects the best way — did Froebel 
grow and become inwardly transformed into his 
fundamental view of the world. 

Such was the vigorous, philosophic life which 
was stirring in Jena when our country boy walked 
into town one day. Let us note again tlie sweep 



38 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

of his two years' stay : he saw Fichte depart in a 
tempest, saw the rise and cuhnination of Schel- 
ling in his greatest epoch, saw the quiet entrance 
of Hegel, the supreme architect of Tliought, who 
was then 31 years old, and still slowly maturing. 
For Hegel had to wait till his architectonic genius 
had ripened, whose function it was to gather all 
the scattered ideas of a richly creative age, to 
bring them into an ordered harmony and build 
them into one vast Parthenon temple of philoso- 
phy, thus saving that Avorld of brilliant fragments 
by housing them in an edifice destined not soon 
to perish. Or we may regard these two years at 
Jena as the time when the very arch of the lofty, 
philosophic bridge which rises out of Medieval- 
ism, or, in its farthest reach, out of Antiquity, 
and bends over into the modern world, down into 
our days, was constructed — and Froebel was 
present and saw the keystone put in. To be 
sure, he never did, and never could, formulate its 
principle in full; but he absorbed its meaning 
instinctively, he was baptized in its creative 
spirit, and it became the unconscious foundation 
of all his work. He Avas flung as it were into 
the fountain-head of the originality of a great 
epoch, in whose productive energy he shares, and 
of which his call is to become, not the philoso- 
pher, not the artist, not the poet, but the edu- 
cator. 

I have probably wearied thee already, my for- 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 39 

bearing reader, with an excess of metaphysics in 
this chapter, but may I not without offense sum- 
mon thee once more to think? Just for one 
moment let us key ourselves up to the act of 
thought and recapitulate in brief dialogue the 
movement out of Fichte into SchelUng, inasmuch 
as it has entered deep into the unconscious life of 
Froebel at this time, and will hereafter show 
itself in his work and in his Avritinos. 

' ' The external world has no true being ; . only 
Self has that," says Fichte. 

*' Right," says Schelling, '' but j^our external 
world is, too, a Self, God's Self manifested. 
Hence, I shall turn to Nature and show it as a 
revelation of the Divine Ego." 

Here is the point at which Schelling took hold 
of the soul of young Froebel and kept it through 
hfe, 3^et with many ups and downs, with many 
fluctuations and modifications. For it is plain 
that in this view Nature is a symbol revealing to 
the senses of men the divinely creative spirit at 
work in the world, and hence may be the means 
of lifting the sensuous being, even the little child 
in the kindergarden, up toward the Godlike. 

Herewith education begins, whose supreme end 
is the unfolding of the human soul into its Divine 
portion, the return to God. The educator, there- 
fore, has a priestly function; he is through 
employing rightly Nature as a symbol of the 
Spirit to develop the human being into unity 



40 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

• 

with its Creator, who is also the Creator of 
Nature. Thus Froebel is applying ScheUing's 
Philosophy of Nature to education, transforming 
it into a grand pedagogical instrumentality for 
brino^ing man back to God. 

This doctrine is particularly brought out in 
Froebel' s introduction to the Education of Man,, 
from which we transcribe the following passagej 
thouoh a dozen like it mio^ht be added : — 

*' Education should lead and direct man to 
clearness concerning and in himself, to peace 
with Nature, and to union with God; hence it 
should elevate man to the knowledge of himself 
and of mankind, to the knowledge of God and 
Nature, and to the pure and holy life conditioned 
through these." 

So much for this dip into German philosophy, 
which we, as the thoroughgoing students of 
Froebel, have to take, for without it there is no 
adequate understanding of him as an educator, 
or of the age which produced him, or indeed of 
the great modern educational movement, in the 
midst of which we are all now whirled onward. 

III. 

The Romantic School at Jena. 

During the years 1799-1801, the period of 
Froebel' s sojourn, we find at Jena the beginnings 
of a movement, which, grounding itself upon 



FEOEBEL AT JENA, 41 

philosophy, is destined to reach far beyond it 
and to embrace Literature, Art and Eeligion, and 
to extend even into the field of Education, in 
which last work Froebel will have a part. This 
is the so-called Romantic movement, very famous 
in its dav, into whose fermentation our sus- 
ceptible country boy makes another plunge head 
foremost by the very fact of his coming to Jena 
at this time. (6) 

The Romantic movement springs confessedly 
out of Fichte's doctrine of the Es^o, which has 
asserted itself as the creator of the world inner 
and outer. The unlimited Self is now free, nay 
is enthroned, and is bound to rule, even in a 
despotic way. What is to restrain its caprice? 
Social and institutional life is as nothing, you 
can make vour own institutions and chanoe them 
at will ; you need have nothing to do with what 
is established. So Fichte in his Science of 
Knowledge broke the shackles of the Ego, espe- 
cially of the German Ego, and mighty was its 
response to his word of emancipation. Now it is 
loose, see it run and careen and curvet unbridled 
in its new freedom, croins; throuoh all sorts of 
fantastic evolutions and contortions. Romantic 
it has become, or is sweeping rapidly in that 
direction. 

But even Fichte has his limits which must be 
transcended by Romanticism; he has no outer 
world of Nature which the artist must have, and 



42 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

he has in his inner world the Moral Law which 
is an obstacle not to be tolerated by the Roman- 
ticist, whose Ego is to show itself in all its 
phases, as fancy, imagination, caprice, mood, 
even as dream. Deep is the break with all 
reality, the deeper the better, even with morality 
there is a rupture. Genius is the supreme act of 
the Self, whose expression is Art, not Morals. 
God is the first artist, and Nature is His Avork of 
Art, everywhere manifesting the Divine Ego in 
all its wild, untameable luxuriance. In fact God 
is the supreme Romantic genius, whom the 
Romanticist alone can rightly appreciate through 
that vast artistic masterpiece of His, called 
Nature. 

It is manifest that Schelling is the philoso- 
pher of Romanticism, he who traced the Divine 
Ego manifesting itself through all the shapes of 
Nature. The Romantic School had as its highest 
end the complete union of Philosophy and Poetry, 
and its supreme poem was to be on Nature, like 
that of Roman Lucretius. Even Goethe carried 
about with him the idea of such a poem for 
several years, but it was never written. The 
nearest to any result of this sort is Schelling' s 
philosophication of Nature, which certainly has 
also a poetic strand. 

Marvelous was the spread of the new gospel, 
which was in fact an outgrowth of the deepest 
needs of the time. It taught the chafing spirit 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 43 

to look within and there construct a world of 
romance, into which it could flee out of the 
miserable reality existing in state and society. 
It could live in an ideal realm of its own crea- 
tion, and thus get rid of the present, this wretched 
Serbonian bog into Avhich not only whole armies, 
but the whole world had sunk. 

Hence Romanticism had a tendency to drop 
back into former periods of history supposed to 
be more ideal. . Especially did it revert to the 
Middle Ag^esinArt, Poetrv, Religion; it catholi- 
cized, and in the person of its chief founder, 
Frederick Schlegel, it joined the Church of 
Rome, thouofh orio^inatino: in Protestant Ger- 
many. But even beyond the medieval world it 
penetrated, yea beyond Europe; it sped to the 
Orient, to India, from which this same Schlegel 
in his world-wide wanderinsfs brousfht back the 
basic stone of Comparative Philology in his 
Sanscrit studies. 

Romanticism accordingly gave expression to a 
deep need of the nation and of the time, in which 
there was a profound but helpless dissatisfaction 
with State, Church, and the Social Order. Let 
us flee from this slough of reality any whither, 
to Shakespeare's England, to Calderon's Spain, 
to Italy, to Greece, aye to the valley of the 
Ganofes. So the Romanticists with marvelous 
learning and skill sought out and worked up in 
translation and imitation old geniuses of far-off 



44 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

countries and distant ages, finding in them a 
spirit kindred to their own. 

Thus Eomanticism showed a vast fresh gather- 
ing of strength, with wliich, however, was 
coupled prodigious weakness, in fact the deep- 
est weakness of the Teutonic spirit, which 
is the inabilit}^ to realize itself adequately in in- 
stitutions. Herein lies its strons^ contrast with 
the Anglo-Saxon spirit, which is supremely insti 
tutional and the maker of institutions. The Ger- 
man has never founded a State or Social System 
in which he feels quite at Kome. He is or has 
been thinker for Europe, and idealist for the 
whole world, only rivaled by the Oriental Hindoo. 
The German can tell more about An^lo-Saxon 
institutions than the Ans^lo-Saxon himself 
knows. The best books on the State are writ- 
ten in German by Germans, but these people 
have never produced the best State even in their 
own opinion. 

What is the result? Through rigid necessity 
the German comes to the conclusion that there 
is an impassable chasm between the Real and 
Ideal, and there is — for him. How this dis- 
tinction winds through all German Literature in 
one form or other — here is the Real, yonder is 
the Ideal, absolutely separated, opposed, and 
indeed irreconcilable! In EnHish Literature it 
hardly exists, unless by importation. But it is 
just that which is painted by the German artist, 



FROEBEL AT JENA. 45 

sung by tne German poet, and formulated by 
the German pliilosopher ; all are seeking to ex- 
press the innermost scission of their people's 
spirit, which is also their own. 

Emphatically is this the theme of Romanticism, 
the fundamental ton<) or kev-note runnino- 
throuo^h all its productions — life's strand dualism 
into Real and Ideal. So it came that the Roman- 
tic School of writers and artists gave utterance 
and relief to the cleft Teutonic folk-soul, with 
its infinite sighings and longings, pegged fast like 
Ariel in the remorseless fissure of a wooden uni- 
verse. All felt the throes of the distracted situ- 
ation in some form, and responded to the consol- 
ing word which might help sustain the burden. 
Even our country-boy Froebel had known the 
bitter reality in the shape of a harsh father and 
a jealous step-mother, and had in a sense fled to 
Jena where was the rising ideal world of Roman- 
ticism ready to receive him and all like him. 

The Romantic School may be said to have 
been born in the years 1799-1800, and the birth 
took place at Jena. Its chief founders were the 
brothers Schlegel, of whom the elder, August 
Willi elm, left the University of Jena in the sum- 
mer of 1800, Avhere he had been active as pro- 
fessor and critic for the preceding four years. 
His brother, Frederick Schlegel, appeared at 
Jena in 1799 and remained a year, a very stimu- 
lating yet disappointing man, the most restless 



46 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL, 

spirit in Germany at this restless epoch, with 
wonderful flashes of genius which never failed to 
go out in a flash, the very incarnation of Roman- 
ticism with all its power of unsteadiness. The 
third great Romantic light was Ludwig Tieck 
who likewise moved to Jena in 1799, coming to 
town at the same time with our country-boy, who 
had in his heart any quantity of Romantic fuel 
ready for ignition. Then the fourth of this high 
company was Novalis, who was a frequent visitor 
at Jena during this time. Upon the same ground 
dwelt Professor Schelling, already known to us 
as the philosopher of Romanticism. So com- 
pletely united and localized with ideas scintillat- 
ing from one glowing center of creative energy, 
the band of Romanticists could never be again, 
each one of whom had his own central Ego radi 
ating its light in a strongly centrifugal fashion. 
Once more behold them all together at Jena in 
the year 1799, which was the flowering season of 
Romanticism ; and then behold the receptive 
rural youth from Oberweissbach coming along 
and gazing atthe wonderful century-plant, a kind 
of night-blooming Cereus, with deep wonder and 
sympathy, for it has some inner bond of connec- 
tion with his darkly struggling and as yet form- 
less soul. 

It is our opinion that this youth, who is our 
Frederick, took up the spirit of Romanticism 
into his own at its very source, catching the ear- 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 47 

liest fragrance of it during the process of its 
blossoming. The two Schlegels and Tieck were 
there at Jena, lecturing and writing upon Poetry, 
Archeology, Romance ( WUlielni Jleister, for^ in- 
stance) with all the enthusiasm of a new-born 
faith. The contagion was in the air which Froe- 
bel was then breatliing, and he was ready to be 
inoculated. 

Yes, he was ready, his young soul was a most 
promising seed-field for a crop of Romanticism. 
His whole life had been one inner protest against 
its environment, one deep feeling of wrong done 
him by those who ought to loA^e him and foster 
his talent. His own home, his own father, just 
the authority over him, was the most crushing 
fact to his spirit ; then the step-mother — but 
the whole world seemed to him a step-mother. 
How he lonoed to flee from the existent order 
above and around him ! In fact, his coming to 
Jena may be considered a flight from the Real to 
the Ideal, from slavery to freedom. For in Jena 
he was living a free life, fulfilling his aspiration; 
he was dwelling in a realm of Ideas, which he 
was sucking in like an infant at the breast, in the 
full delight of growth without knowing it, away 
from church and pastor, from family and father, 
wholly out of reach of a step-motherly world. 

Now this Romantic strand will be woven 
through Froebel's life and work. Later, during 
more mature years, he will again come upon it in 



48 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL, 

Berlin. His two chief friends there, his compan- 
ions in arms, as well as his fellow- workers in 
Keilhau afterwards — Middendorf and Lange- 
thal — may be fairly called Romanticists. Both 
were students of theology, pupils of Schleier- 
macher avIio belonged to the Romantic School, 
and who, though a Christian minister in real 
Prussia, fled to ideal Greece, and lived there with 
the ancient idealist Plato, whom he translated and 
interpreted to his own age. Then Froebel's wife, 
Wilhelmine Hoffmeister, was a Romanticist, 
highly cultured and refined j and her marriage to 
the poor, rustic Thuringian schoolmaster must be 
called romantic in a double sense. 

A word may be said here about these female 
Romanticists, Avho have an important place in the 
movement. Indeed, the rank and file of the 
Romantic army, the great body of devotees, dis- 
ciples, readers of Romantic Literature, were 
women, to whom this view of life very strongly 
appealed. And they have their supreme represen- 
tative, the woman Romanticist above all others, 
Caroline Michaelis-Bohmer-Schlieo-el-Schellinof 
the woman of many husbands, each of whom 
may be considered to represent a stepping- 
stone of progress or a stage of her Romantic 
career, culminating in philosophy, which she 
finally wedded in the person of the philosopher 
of Romanticism himself, our av ell-known Schel- 
ling. Her previous Romantic husband, the 



FTtOEBEL AT JENA. 49 

famous A. W. Sclilegel, she simply dropped 
when she was done with him, seemingly to his 
joy, and, obtaining largely through his interces- 
sion, an easy divorce from the obliging Duke of 
Weimar, she was ready to marry a new stage of 
Romantic progress illustrated by a husband. 
But, we must add, she never got to Hegel, for 
she never got him, the mighty thought -builder, 
inasmuch as Caroline did not like system ; hers 
were insights, moods, intuitions, caprices, emo- 
tions, coruscations of the genius of disorder; in 
fine, that woman had in her and could play on oc- 
casion the whole gamut of Romantic subjectivity 
from the bottom note to its highest, all of them 
taking shape at last in a line of Romantic lovers. 

And we must remember that from the Roman- 
tic female atjnosphere of Berlin Froebel will take 
the Hoifmeister, who, by the by, was also a 
divorced woman (without any blame of hers, be 
it added), and will carry her off to his ideal world 
in the Thuringian Forest, of course with her own 
consent. 

The school founded by Froebel at Keilhau had 
many elements of Romanticism, which were 
directed, in accord with the bent of his genius, 
to the education of the people. In that little 
village there was a simple, idyllic life, to which a 
flight had taken place from a more complex social 
condition ; there was the return to Nature, to Par- 
adise ; there was a going back to Medieval cus- 

4 



60 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

toni and costume, to the Medieval romance (the 
Magic Ring, for instance) which was read by 
the students, and talked of by the teachers ; in 
the long tours and wanderings of the Keilhau 
boys one feels a touch of knight-errantry, adven- 
turous, fantastic, almost Quixotic at times; 
surely, here was a pronounced vein of Romanti- 
cism. 

Another sicynificant and far-reaching fact must 
be noted in this connection : there was also an 
inner withdrawal from the institutional reality, 
from State and Church, though there was an 
outward conformity to both. Patriotism and re- 
ligion, genuine and abundant, were found at 
Keilhau, but their institutional embodiments were 
not specially cultivated, were not so very accept- 
able, in the form they showed themselves in 
Germany at this period. As we see Froebel, we 
find this inner breach with the institutions of his 
land runnino^ throus^h his life, and causing^ him 
no small trouble, and making him suspected and 
even persecuted by the authorities down to his 
dying day. 

In some such fashion we may bring before 
ourselves the influence of Romanticism upon 
Froebel' s thought and work. He drank of it 
first at Jena, havino^ broutJ^ht thither the feelino: 
of deep discord between the Real and Ideal in 
his own life. He hears of the doctrine of the 
subjective Ego, and its supreme right of freedom. 



FEOEBEL AT JENA. 51 

He as educator will assert that not only the 
grown man, but the Ego of youth, yea, of in- 
fancy, has the right to make its own world; the 
boy must be trained to be a Romantic genius — 
that is Keilhau. Even the baby in the cradle 
must be permitted to affirm its Ego, and from 
this starting-point to be educated — the baby is 
a Eomantic being and must be treated romantic- 
ally. Child-vStudy may spurn its origin, but a 
good part of its ancestry can be traced back to 
the Eomantic movement, which, in the order of 
nature, could only have Romantic infants, and 
was compelled by its own principle to exploit all 
the wonders and profundities of babydom. 

IV. 

Jena and Weinnar. 

Who is that tall, majestic man alighting from 
his vehicle yonder, with the mien of supreme 
authority, yet with every line melting into mild- 
ness? Already several of the professors, the 
most distino^uished at Jena, have orathered about 
him, and are saluting him reverentially, jet in 
the equality of friendship. He looks a great 
man, every inch of him. Homer, would say, a 
God had descended to Earth from his Olympian 
seat, and had taken human shape, to speak some 
divine word unto mortals. 

Our Thuringian country-boy, recently arrived 



62 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

at Jena, comes down the street taking a stroll, 
and beholds that awe-inspiring human presence ; 
he stops and gazes for a moment, then eagerly 
asks brother Traugott at his side: ''Who is 
that? " Traugott, having been a student for 
many months, knows the face and answers: 
"That is Goethe, he has just come over from 
Weimar on one of his frequent visits to the 
University." 

Such is the scene in Avhich the reader is to 
imagine the susceptible youth looking upon the 
visible human appearance of the greatest man 
his nation has produced — no insignihcant event 
in the life of the boy. He must have had the 
same opportunity frequently during his two years' 
stay, as the University was under the direct per- 
sonal supervision of Goethe at this time. 

" Did you see him? " asked Goethe eagerly of 
Eckermann on a certain occasion, " did you see 
him? " See whom? See Wellington, the hero, 
who was passing through Weimar on his way to 
the Congress of Vienna. A great thing to look 
upon the visible incarnation of the heroic in any 
form — so thought Goethe. But really at that 
moment Eckermann was looking upon a hero 
greater than Wellington, greater than Napoleon, 
the hero of Culture, yes, the highest living em- 
bodiment of our modern Culture, namely, Goethe 
himself. 

A few miles across the countrv from Jena lies 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 53 

the little city of Weimar, seat of government 
and home of Goethe, the Zeus of this new, 
Olympian world, supreme poet on the one hand 
and chief minister of State on the other. He 
had orathered round himself the chief sins^ers, 
philosophers, scientists of this fertile epoch. 
The little river Ilm running past Weimar saw 
wonders and heard melodies loftiest and sweetest 
of our modern era. Goethe's sfarden house 
stands in the little valley near the bend of the 
stream, and seems to be lingering still to strains 
whose sinoers have lonof since vanished. 

What, then, was going on at Weimar during 
these years 1799-1801? Marvelous creations of 
the Muse ; Schiller and Goethe had produced in 
rivalry some of their finest ballads, as 1797 was 
the famous ballad-year; Wilhelm Meister's Ap- 
prenticeship had been printed and was doing its 
work, especially in the Romantic School; Goethe 
was busy, among other things, with Faust. 
The grand modern literary epoch of Germany 
was just in the height of its creative energy. 

But the chief poetic outburst of Weimar dur- 
ing these years lay in the line of the drama, and 
Schiller was in the supremacy of his genius. His 
WaUenstein was produced on the boards in 1799, 
his Maria Stuart in 1800, his Maid of Orleans 
in 1801. German criticism to-day still assigns 
to these three works the hio^hest rank in German 
dramatic literature, with the exception of Faust, 



54 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

which is considered to be a universal poem rather 
than a stage-drama. 

Great excitement these plays produced among 
the students of Jena, who were zealous theater- 
goers. Was Froebel among them? We catch 
somethino^ in the foUowino^ intimation : "I lived 
in a very retired, economical way during my stay 
at the University ; I appeared seldom in public 
places. Only the drama, of which I was still 
passionately fond, did I visit now and then." 
The question rises: What did he see at the 
theater during those years? Naturally the new 
plays which were creating the most excitement, 
and which wxre the talk everywhere in University 
circles. So Froebel must have seen and felt the 
finest bloom and the highest creative activity of 
Schiller, who had been a professor at Jena, leav- 
ing there in 1799, and going to Weimar to devote 
himseK entirely to literary work. 

It was the habit of groups of students to walk 
over from Jena and fill the Weimar theater on 
special occasions and then walk back. Assuredly 
Froebel took this trip, easy and not expensive, 
with his comrades. He does not say that he 
did so in his own autobiography, but if he visited 
the theater, this was certainly the thing for him 
to do. And we must recollect that a certain dra- 
matic element was never absent from his instruc- 
tion ; the boys at Keilhau had their little theater, 
and their puppet play ; they acted the medieval 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. ' 55 

knight as well as warlike operations in their 
games. So we may well imagine Froebel tramp- 
ing across the country to see Wallensteiii the 
first year of its production, with a merry band 
of students. 

At "Weimar lived the great originative spirit 
who, more than any other man, was the incarna- 
tion of this creative period. Goethe was not 
only the protector and fosterer of these manifold 
activities, philosophical, literary, scientific, but 
largely their generating source; their primitive 
fountain lay in his soul. He certainly studied 
philosophy and car.ef uUy looked after his philoso- 
phers at Jena, though he claims that he had *' no 
philosophical organ," and often shows himself 
averse to metaphysical speculation. But in Poe- 
try, Art, Science, Literature he was the creative 
center. The darling of Nature he was, upon 
whom she bestowed her choicest gifts, not one 
but many ; she would play upon his soul all her 
hidden harmonies, and he could respond to her 
softest and subtlest breathings in the music of 
his verse. 

But not merely the unconscious child of Na- 
ture he* was ; he had to know the sources of his 
own genius, so he studied Nature with the keen, 
careful, temperate eje of science, and many were 
the secrets which he made her tell in that way. 
His o:reat aim was to behold the unitv of Nature 
in all its variations; says he, " every creature is 



56 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

but one note of a vast harmony which we have 
to study in its totality." 

Out of Goethe's soul really flowed that thought 
of unity and harmony which dominated Jena and 
Weimar in their diverse tendencies and pursuits, 
and it came to Froebel in various ways, unrecog- 
nized and recognized, during his stay. It was 
really the chief thing which he carried away with 
him from the University. 

Such was the man now in supreme authority 
over this world — truly the Zeus of Weimar. 
He could foster every talent, however different 
from his own; he sought to* give to every indi- 
vidual a true field for development, he tried to 
bring every displaced genius to its proper envi- 
ronment, where it could fully unfold according 
to its law. If he saw a talent out of position, his 
immediate impulse was to transplant it into its 
right surroundings. He was a kind of second 
Providence to many dislocated abilities. What 
a time did he not have with his capricious recal- 
citrant geniuses gathered around him at Jena and 
Weimar! All Olympians, it is true, with the 
divine spark burning in them; but like those 
other deities on old Olympus, jealous, headstrong, 
irritable, even conspiring against the father and 
protector of them all, Zeus himself. Much he 
had to suffer, even as Zeus; think of the eternal 
irritations of sensitive Herder and that wife of 
his, the high-strung Caroline ; think how he tried 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 57 

to save and protect Fichte from his own Titanic 
folly, till at last the Titan revolted and defied 
Zeus and all his thunderbolts, when the Titan 
had to be whisked out of Olympus. 

This divinely providential element in Goethe, 
exercised towards the lesser divinities as well as 
toward poor mortals, was a greatness equal to his 
divinely poetical genius, indeed brother to it, 
both sprung of one insight into the divine order 
of the world. (7) 

Still we cannot say that the direct influence of 
Goethe upon Froebel was very great either at 
Jena or afterwards. Yet their educational ideas 
often ran upon parallel lines ; both followed the 
spirit of their age in seeking to show forth what 
the school ought to be. Froebel made his ex- 
periments actual at Keilhau, Goethe kept his 
experiment ideal in the pedagogic province as 
portrayed in the Second Part of Meister. Prob- 
ably Goethe knew little of Keilhau, though it was 
not so very far from AVeimar ; Froebel never 
heard or read of Goethe's pedagogic province 
till twenty years or more after its pubUca- 
tion, when his attention was called to it by the 
Baroness von Marenholtz-Biilow. (8) 

Far more direct and important was the influ- 
ence of Schiller upon Froebel and Keilhau for a 
number of reasons. Schiller is the poet of the 
Real and Ideal, that is, of the German dualism 
in all its intensity, and hence he is the national 



58 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL, 

poet, by virtue of his limitation as well as of 
his excellence. Goethe rises above this duaUsm 
and so is the universal poet. Characteristic it is 
that he did not like the Romantic School. But 
Schiller's genius is essentially Romantic, some- 
times in spite of himself. Chivalry, knight- 
hood, the medieval world make the setting and 
the theme of many of his ballads, which were 
praised and sung and recited by the men and 
boys of Keilhau as they tramped over the hills 
and through the valleys of Germany in a kind of 
educational knight-errantry. 

V. 

Finale at Jena. 

Froebel had felt great joy in coming to Jena, 
he had escaped from tyranny and uncongenial 
life at home into a free and harmonious world. 
For once he had entered paradise. *' I seemed 
transported into a garden full of all sorts of ripe 
and excellent fruits," and o^reat was his delis^ht 
at the prospect. 

But into this paradise too the demon enters. 
His father had given him a bank draft to meet 
his expenses for the whole time of his stay. 
His brother Traugott, who was still at Jena 
studying medicine, asked him for a loan, promis- 
ing to return it soon. But he did not, and the 
second year he seems to have quit the Universitv, 



I 



FROEBEL AT JENA, 59 

and left his young brother in financial straits. 
This appears to have produced an alienation be- 
tween the two brothers, which was never after- 
wards healed. 

The prudent thing for Frederick was to retire 
for the present from the University, as at 
the end of the year he had spent all his money. 
But he could not bring himself to quit his studies 
so great was his thirst for knowledge ; he would 
not abandon paradise for a want of funds. He 
thought his father would help him out for an- 
other term, but he was mistaken; the father 
stubbornly refused to aid his son, instigated in 
his opposition by the step-mother, as Froebel 
thinks. 

Then the eager youth appealed to his guardian 
for the remaining portion of a small inheritance 
from his mother still due him, but the guardian 
refused also, takino^ refusfe behind a leo^al tech- 
nieality. Meantime Frederick has to eat, and 
the boarding-house keeper becomes importunate 
and hard-hearted. The outcome is that Fred- 
erick Froebel is compelled to go to prison for 
debt, where he stays nine weeks. (9) 

A most harsh, painful set of actions all around, 
from brother, father, guardian, step-mother and 
boarding-house keeper ; really the prison seems 
almost to have been a relief. He had fallen into 
a state of utter misery and despondency ; he had 
ceased attending the lectures of the teachers who 



60 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

had not been paid. Then in his sensitiveness he 
shunned people on .the street to whom he owed 
nothing, as he imagined they saw in him the 
moneyless debtor. Thus his Paradise has turned 
into an Inferno from which he found release in 
the prison of the University. There he was fed 
at least, though on prison fare, and was rid of 
those pitiless bloodhounds — the dunners for 
debts which a man cannot pay. Certainly that 
prison was a release. Moreover, he could study 
there, as it was a University prison, just made 
for students. Feeling his need of Latin, he be- 
gan to take lessons in that tongue, — not the 
first of many unsuccessful attempts. Eeally he 
could not learn grammar, which he called dead 
and disjointed. He took a glimpse into t^he 
Orient through the Zendavesta, the Persian 
Bible. Then he studied Winkelmann's *' Letters 
on Art," he is going to expand the artistic ele- 
ment of his nature. Both these books show the 
impulse to widen his horizon, which he had re- 
ceived at Jena. Then he prepared also in prison 
a thesis on geometry, really his favorite study. 
Quite a little curriculum in that University 
prison. 

At last the father consented to advance the 
money necessary for his son's freedom, if the 
latter would renounce before the University 
Court all claims to inheritance on the paternal 
estate. A harsh provision; one thinks again of 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 61 

that jealous step-mother looking out for her own 
son. But he has gotten his freedom and he 
steps out of his prison-door Avitli a dislike for 
Jena and all memory of it, from which he never 
recovers. 

Such is the account which Froebel has left us 
of the unhappy conclusion of his Jena career. 
He was certainly treated with a spirit of malignity 
by those who ought to have loved him and helped 
him. But has he not softened his own share of 
responsibility? Certainly he persisted in staying 
when his money was gone ; he took the chances 
and the chances went against him hea^dly. Then 
another thought will come up in the mind of the 
person who surveys the whole life of Froebel : 
from beginning to end he was a bad debt-payer. 
Any amount of trouble he caused to himself and 
friends on account of this trait. He did not 
squander the money on himself, but in the pur- 
suit of the Idea he was remorseless with his own 
and other people's property, if he could get hold 
of it. He often made promises which he would 
not or could not fulfill, not, however, with any 
desio^n of defraudino- for the sake of ffain. Still 
this fact has been the cause of some of the most 
serious charo^es brousfht ao^ainst his character. 
At Jena he was excusable, being a mere youth, 
inexperienced of the world; still the youth 
Froebel throws a shadow in this business which 
calls up the man Froebel, particularly at Keilhau. 



62 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

The outcome of the Jena e'xperiment was very 
disagreeable — shame, humiliation, disappoint- 
ment. Later in life, when he resolved on going 
aofain to the Universitv, he thouo^ht of Heidel- 
berg, Gottingen, Berlin, but not of Jena. He 
has left us an account of his stay at Jena in 
three different letters. In all of them is a vein of 
sharp criticism verging on bitterness, a sense of 
having suffered deep wrong. Not without some 
justification, we say; but, on the other hand it 
must be confessed that there is no adequate 
acknowledgment of the great things he obtained 
there. He mentions what he studied in a kind 
of dry critical way, but he shows no recognition 
of the enormous stimulus he received at Jena, 
and which determined his life. Froebel really 
makes there his connection with the great Ger- 
man, we might say, the great European spiritual 
renascence of our modern age. To be sure, he 
was not conscious of this at the time, and after- 
wards he may never have been fully aware of 
what Jena did for him. But what he did know, 
he Avas loth to acknowledo^e. 

At last, however, he has his freedom, and now 
what is he going to do with it? Again he has to 
make the choice between Scylla and Chary bdis, 
or steer his life-boat between the demon and the 
deep sea. Paradisaical Jena has become an In- 
ferno, where he can not stay. If he before ran 
and hid in his room to keep from people who 



FBOEBEL AT JENA. 63 

might call him a debtor — and probably some 
teasing; students did twit him with this disao^ree- 
able fact — what now would he have to suffer 
from them, tormenting him as a jail-bird? He 
knew and probably had experienced that students 
in their unbridled pranks can be the most heart- 
less tormentors in this world — worse than blood- 
thirsty, actually pain-thirsty, lovers of agony, 
sometimes torturing their own associates even 
unto death. Eather than meet this carnivorous 
pack, he preferred to return home to his step- 
mother, to his father, bad as it was there. Such 
a cup of life's bitterness the youth had to drain 
in these days, and the reality was, in appearance 
at least, diabolic. 

Still in all this we may see the training of 
Frederick Froebel for the severe life-task which 
lies before him. Steeled he must become to the 
hardest blows of Fate, nay, be crushed by them 
into the earth, and then rise again to his feet out 
of the very dust, ready for another onset. He, 
that rural Thuringian infant, has been suckled at 
Jena by the Time-Spirit with her mother's milk, 
for two long years has this lactation lasted, and 
it is high time that the baby be weaned. For 
he is not to be an erudite professional Dry-as-dust 
in the University halls of learning, but a soldier 
of the new Crusade ag^ainst the Hosts of Nio^ht. 
Tough must be his sides and perdurable his 
heart; so the All-Mother takes him and flings 



64 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

him from her breast, Avith his mouth still cling- 
ing to her nipple, so sweet to him is the draught 
of knowledge. Not without a rude shock will 
the youngster let go, and then he will remain in 
a lit of sullenness all his days over the event, 
deeming Alma Mater ^ who took him at first so 
lovingly to her bosom, to have turned step- 
mother, and to be no better than the one atOber- 
weissbach, unto whose mercies he has to flee 
from Jena. 



CHAPTER THIRD. 
IN PURSUIT OF A VOCATION. 

We now come to the most changeful, wander- 
ing, uncertain part of Froebel's changeful life. 
Having quit Jena and been thrown back upon his 
father's house, which he had hoped to have left 
forever, he does not know what to do with him- 
self. He has no means, having spent his 
mother's and renounced his father's inheritance. 
He has no trade, no vocation by which to earn 
his bread. Evidently the grand question now is: 
AVhat can be made out of him? 

This is supremely the problem with Froebel 
himself. Conscious of something within him 
which will not let him stop, he is driven about 
from one pursuit to another, from one employer 
to another, from one place to another, in a state 

5 (G5) 



6Q THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

of absolute unrest. What is that hidden driving 
energy which -goads him pitilessly, till he finds 
the thinof which he is to do in this world? Some 
unrealized talent is prodding him forward — but 
Avhat is it? He cannot tell himself. Some un- 
fulfilled destiny hovers vaguely before him, but 
he cannot overtake it and seize it, and make it 
give up its secret. 

As formerly we heard the question from his 
parents, *' What shall be done with the boy? " — 
so now he hears from his own soul the much 
more intricate and far-reaching question, "What 
shall I do with myself? " Nineteen years old, 
just the age for stranding ; quite isolated from 
everything and alone ; separated from my parents 
on the one hand and from the University on the 
other ; with a world to be conquered outside of 
me, and what is harder, with a world to be con- 
quered inside of me; pray, what shall I do with 
myself ? 

So we may imagine young Froebel interro- 
gating just now the Oracle of Life, and getting a 
very ambiguous response. He must believe, 
after his Jena experience, more than ever in the 
grand chasm between the Eeal and the Ideal, in 
their complete and irreconcilable separation, 
illustrated so remorselessly in his own case. 
Clearly a new discipline has to begin at this 
point, to the end that he may discover himself 
and his callinof. 



m PUB SUIT OF A VOCATION. 67 

Now he is to wander four years (1801-5) 
throuoh the fleetinof shadows of existence which 
dance around him and lure him to grasp them till 
he finds that they are shadows, testing them one 
after another in a long line of delusive appear- 
ances. At last his weary discipline ends, and 
one day the voice speaks from heaven : ''Be a 
teacher." Of a sudden the shadows vanish for- 
ever and forever, he seizes the reality of his life 
at its very heart, and linds his grand terrestrial 
vocation. Whereof now to the record. 

I. 

Wanderings. 

Very naturally our young Frederick entered 
his father's house with a sad heart, gloomy fore- 
bodings, and a downcast spirit. Could he help 
remembering with what joy and hope he had 
(|uit there two years before for the ideal end of 
his striving, the University of Jena? Now the 
hitter had violently hurled him back upon his 
tirst miserable condition and worse. But it was 
spring, and loving Nature began to caress him 
with sunshine, and to warm him, and to stir him 
with fresh life and effort. 

Very soon Jena starts to make itself felt again, 
at present in its literary influence. '' I had just 
recently (namely at Jena) become acquainted 
with the names of Goethe, Schiller, Wieland and 



68 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

others (of the Weimar celebrities)." In his 
present leisure he evidently began to read these 
authors, obeying that impulse received at the 
University. But it must be confessed that 
Froebel never knew much about literature, its 
o;reat heroes were never his, he never was able 
to weTive it into his inner life. His expression 
was not literary, at least his best expression was 
not. 

More attractive to him was " a survey of the 
total field of human knowledge," from a work 
called Mappe dii Monde literaire, a book of gen- 
eral information duly classified under certain 
heads which gave ' ' an abstract of all the sciences 
and arts in their ramifications." By this he was 
led to make a scrap-book of his own, composed 
of all sorts of extracts from periodicals to which 
he had access in his father's house. Such a col- 
lection young people of a studious turn are 
usually inclined to make at Froebel' s time of 
life. 

In a remote part of the house he occupied a 
little room whose windows were latticed with iron 
rods ; he had again fled to his ideal world and 
was happy at his task, when his father walked in 
upon him one day. The old man looked at the 
work and then branded it as a " foolish waste of 
time and paper." No encouragement for the 
youth's aspiration, on the contrary downright 
smothering and suppression ; but at this moment 



m PURSUIT OF A VOCATION. 69 

his brother Christoph steps in on a visit from his 
parish, sympathizes, intercedes, wards off the 
father, and rescues Frederick, as he had often 
done before, " seeing in him the image of the 
mother." 

Clearly something must be done with this idle 
fellow wasting time and paper in making scrap- 
books of universal knowledge. He must be put 
to work, and that too, solid work. 

Accordingly the father sends him to some 
relatives who had a farm at Ililburghhausen, 
where he cultivates the soil for a while, " with- 
out, however, being enchanted by the occupa- 
tion." 

At this time he begins to regret his misunder- 
standing with his father, and resolves to take the 
first step toward reconciliation by writing a peni- 
tential letter. He knew that his father was near 
the grave, and he could not endure to have him 
pass beyond without being reconciled. But be- 
fore the letter was written, he was called home 
by the father, who also seems to have wished to 
see his cast-off son near him in his last days. 
The latter came and assisted his weak, bed-ridden 
parent in writing and otherwise, and they appear 
to have found one another at the final parting. 
The father soon died (1802); both were soft- 
ened in their views of each other, and the step- 
mother apparently vanished out of these closing 
scenes between father and son. 



70 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Froebel now felt himself a free man, he could 
direct his own life as he chose. No longer under 
the control of father and step-mother, he feels 
his new liberty and proposes to enjoy it. Still 
he has to do something for his bread. He 
obtains the position of actuary in the adminis- 
trative department of the bishopric of Bamberg. 
At lirst he took pleasure in his new place ; his 
duties were not heavy, the surrounding scenery 
delio^htful, and so he aoain '* lived in and with 
Nature." His position seems to have been 
hardly more than a clerkship, and at last he grew 
tired of " the everlastinof scribblino- " which was 
required of him by the place. 

Here his chief acquisition was a friend whose 
name he does not mention, and who will after- 
wards serve him many a good turn. This friend 
was a domestic tutor, highly educated, while 
*' my school-training Avas defective." Note this 
confession on the part of Froebel himself, as the 
fact was important through his whole life. This 
friend had also " grand plans of education," of 
which he was fond of talking, and thereby was 
watered a httle unconscious orerm in Froebel's 
own soul. 

Another point of his inner culture must not be 
passed over. In the library of the head official, 
to which he had access, he found some collec- 
tions of aphorisms, '' sayings, thoughts, observa- 
tions on life, culled from ancient and modern 



IN PURSUIT OF A VOCATION. 71 

thinkers." This proverbial philosophy he 
*'wove into his livins" and thinkinof," and he 
made extracts of the most appropriate ones 
which he always carried about in his pocket. 
This aphoristic tendency will show itself in 
Froebel's method of expression and of his 
thought; he will write his own Book of Aphor- 
isms (1821), and the aphoristic style will show 
itself decidedly in the Education of Man 
(1826). Truly does he say of this time, " My 
whole inner hf e orew and entwined itself in and 
around these aphorisms." (10) 

In a year's time or less he finds that this 
''everlasting scribbling" of a clerkship is not 
his vocation. So in the spring of 1803 he throws 
up his situation and resolves to try his hand at 
land-surveying in which he had become inter- 
ested. He had already heard lectures on this 
subject at Jena, and before that time seems to 
have had a little experience. He made applica- 
tion at Bamberg, and received some temporary 
employment, but no permanent position. 

During one of these engagements he meets a 
young Doctor of Philosophy who had been at 
Jena, and who was imbued with the doctrines of 
Schelling. Froebel had seen him already at 
Jena, and of course they talked over and dis- 
cussed the greatest influence in their University. 
The young man gave him Schelling's Bruno to 
read which had not long before appeared. 



72 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Froebel saj^s, "this book aroused me mightily, 
I believed I miderstood it." This sounds as if 
he had come to the conclusion that he did 
not understand the book at the date of the cited 
letter (1827). But we note again that the un- 
recognized Jena influence is making itself felt. 

The young Doctor, however, completely be- 
fogged Froebel by his final advice: "Be on 
your guard against philosophy, it leads to doubt 
and night. Devote yourself to art, it gives life, 
and peace and delight." Art is the supreme 
matter in one stage of Schelling's philosophizing, 
and the young Doctor was literally following his 
master, but Froebel was badly upset, for he re- 
garded philosophy as something belonging to the 
life of man, and specially to the inner life, while 
art lay far away in his horizon. 

Amid many little fluctuations, outer and inner, 
we find Froebel early in 1804 accepting the 
position of private secretary to an important 
official. Von Dewitz, Avho was then living on one 
of his estates called Gross Milchow. In the 
meantime Froebel goes to another man and per- 
forms the duties of bookkeeper and accountant. 
With this work too he soon becomes dissatisfied, 
he feels his vocation is not that of a bookkeeper 
or private secretary, and so meditates another 
change. 

In this period too, he was not without mental 
stinmlation, and he had a good deal of intellectual 



m PURSUIT OF A VOCATION. 73 

companionship. He mentions books which he 
read and which produced a strong influence upon 
him. One of these was the writings of Novalis, 
with which he felt great sympathy, " The book 
revealed to me my own soul laid bare in its most 
hidden impulse and aspiration, the innermost 
striving and struggling of my spirit. I seemed 
to walk Avith that book in me, and if anything 
happened to that book, I felt as if it would 
happen to me, and even more deeply and pain- 
fully." 

Very congenial is Novalis to Froebel, indeed 
they are in a number of traits spiritual brothers. 
Novalis was one of the leading Romanticists, he 
has been called the prophet of Romanticism. 
He often visited Jena in 1799-1801, hovering 
about the house of the Schlegels, of whom Fred- 
erick Schlegel was his chief friend and admirer. 
Young Froebel may have seen the tall, consump- 
tive, dreamy young fellow (he died in 1801) 
with Tieck and the other members of the Roman- 
tic School which had its bloom at Jena in 1799. 
Novalis' chief doctrine was that all Nature was a 
symbol of spirit, which doctrine Froebel imbibed 
with untold joy and will hereafter apply in mar- 
velous ways. (11) 

So Froebel must again change, and he must 
now find his real vocation. His nameless friend, 
the private tutor of Bamberg, urges him by letter 
to go to Frankfort, and there to study architec- 



74 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

ture, which he had settled upon. But the poor 
fellow had no money, and he writes to his 
brother, whose answer he fears, since another of 
these changes indicating his unchangeable change- 
fulness, is contemplated. But his brother is 
sympathetic, and announces to him that he has 
received a small legacy through the death of his 
uncle Hoffmann. 

Thus Providence again flings a little cash into 
the empty hands of Frederick Froebel at a turn- 
ing-point of his life, as had before been the case 
when he went to Jena. And again this help 
comes from his mother's side, as if she were still 
maintaining an unseen guardianship over the son 
whom she left in the cradle. 

Still at this time he had gleams of a premo- 
nition of what was to be his future callinof. He 
wrote in the album of a friend the following sen- 
tences : '* Be thy aim to give bread to men; let 
my striving be to give men to themselves." 

One thinks, in this expression, of the mystical 

prophetic manner of Novalis, whom Froebel had 

just been absorbing. A remote unconscious 

> aspiration to be an educator of men lies in the 

words. 

But his conscious purpose at present is to be- 
come an architect. Accordingly in May, 1805, he 
leaves his position, and visits his elder brother 
Christoph and imparts his new plans, and the 
strong desire of his heart. Somewhat unexpect- 



IN PUB SUIT OF A VOCATION. 75 

edly the brother spoke with approval, and re- 
vealed a secret bit of his own history. He too 
in his youth had high ambitions, but the iron will 
of the father chained him down to his present 
vocation which he could not now chans^e. So he 
bids the aspiring Frederick to follow the inner 
call faithfullv and without flinchino^. 

The young man went forth, elevated in mood 
and strengthened in resolution by the strong, sym- 
pathetic words of the brother. His road led him 
over the Wartburg, Germany's Holy Mountain, 
which Froebel now beheld thinkins^ of Luther, 
the valiant soldier of truth, yet also thinking that 
Luther had still left much to be done, that is, 
much for Froebel to do. And so in a few days 
he reaches Frankfort. 

On looking back at these four years which we 
have briefly summarized from the Autobiography, 
the notable matter is the instability of Froebel, 
whose outer and inner life appear in total dis- 
cord. He changes six times at least, not count- 
ing the smaller shif tings, going from place to 
place, from employer " to employer, from one 
occupation to another. 

Very billowy and mutable was this outer life, 
but underneath we note a continuous influence of 
Jena, that is, of the unmentioned Jena. He 
still is working at philosophy and specially at 
Schelling; then, too, he develops the literary 
impulse which came from IVeimar and Jena ; also 



76 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

he keeps up the acquaintance with the Romantic 
School through its prophet Novalis, and shows 
the strongest sympathy. Thus the three un- 
recognized influences of Jena, as set forth in 
the preceding chapter, are what are now perpet- 
uating themselves in his life, alid are more com- 
pletely connecting him with the great spiritual 
renascence of Euroj^e, Avhich had its chief seat 
in Germany and created modern German Liter- 
ature, as its highest expression. 

Strangely, the practical studies of Jena are 
what he is changing, he passes from one to an- 
other, such as surveying, drawing of maps, 
accounts, etc. But he cannot content himself 
with a vocation, which simply gives him a phys- 
ical existence. 

Accordingly, we behold in this chapter two 
strands, an outer and inner; one of practical 
life, of occupation, yet producing unrest and dis- 
content; the other shows his aspiration, his 
desire for culture, his steady pursuit of self- 
development. Thus his real and his ideal worlds 
are discordant, opposed, strifeful. The grand 
question with him is : How can they be harmo- 
nized? The outer strand is money-making, or 
bread-winning, a necessity like fate; the inner 
is man-making, soul-building, and its end is 
freedom. 

But let us glance at him in his new situation 
and see whether this lono^-continued travail is 



IN PUB SUIT OF A VOCATION. 77 

going to bring forth his vocation, whereby his 
tormenting demonic world-pain ( Weltschmet^z) 
may be gotten out of him, and thus ended, to his 
and our great relief. 

II. 

Be a Teacher. 

Froebel has now arrived at Frankfort in the 
course of his restless meanderings of body and 
soul. It was midsummer 1805, when he reached 
that city, which lies in the heart of Germany 
and is ever memorable as the birth-place of the 
greatest of Germans, Goethe. An important, 
social and political center Frankfort was then, 
with a good deal of civic pride and independence, 
though overshadowed by the despotic power of 
Napoleon. 

The object of Froebel was to study archi- 
tecture. His resolution seemed fixed, he had 
done something already in that line, and now he 
will settle down to a vocation, having made his 
final choice. Much has he fluctuated, drifting 
from this thing to that; twenty-three years of 
existence have circled over him, surely it is time 
for him to anchor his bark on something stable. 

Scarcely has the project taken shape, when 
an inner protest again begins surging mightily 
within him. He questions himself : ' ' Is this new 
vocation my true business in life? Can I use it 
for the betterment of man? " Thus the inner 



78 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

genius rises in secret revolt, and the soul becomes 
a fresh battle-ground of contending powers. 

Still Froebel keeps firm to his resolution, for 
this unsettled, fluctuating, wandering vagabond- 
age must be brought to an end. So he begins 
his study under an architect; with a kind of 
violence he flings himself upon his work. Yet 
every pulse within him Avas throbbing backward 
in rebellion. 

These architectural studies, present and past, 
have, notwithstanding, left their mark upon 
Froebel and his scheme of education. Ever 
afterwards we shall And him employing construc- 
tion as a means of training. He loved to build 
the house, but far better, he loved to build the 
soul, which indeed Avas just his true vocation, 
of which he is now in search. So he is destined 
to use house-building, not for its own sake, but 
for soul-building ; it is to become a grand edu- 
cative means in his hands, whereof the great ex- 
ample is seen in the Building Gifts of the Kin- 
dergarden, through which the little child is led 
to build within by building without. 

No wonder, then, that the young man was 
unhappy at Frankfort. He Avas carrying around 
Avithin himself the deepest sort of inner scission. 
That Avhich he Avas called to do in this life he Avas 
not doing, he had chosen a vocation in Avhicb he 
could not realize his best self, and great was the 
tumult thereof. 



IN PURSUIT OF A VOCATION. 79 

And now enters the unforeseen outer circum- 
stance which interweaves itself just at the turn- 
ing-point into the uncertain, vacillating human 
spirit, and makes it conscious of its destiny, de- 
termining its course ever afterward. The total 
universe in its providential or.dering seems to bring- 
forth a small, apparently insignificant event and 
to give to it a voice which speaks exactly the 
right word to the struggling soul at the critical 
moment of its new birth or of its new career. If 
Homer were singing this epic of Froebel, a God, 
or perchance a Goddess, would now" appear and 
say the divine thing to the doubting youth, who 
would therein find the solution of all his difficult- 
ies. Let it be Pallas Athena as she once came 
down from Olympus to the young Telemachus in 
sunny Ithaca, when he stood hesitating at the cross- 
roads of his career, and spoke to him her heavenly 
word of hope and direction, pointing out the way 
he should henceforth go. 

But instead of a grand divine epiphany at this 
point , the modern biographer can simply record that 
our young man, Froebel, was introduced one day 
not lono' after his arrival to Doctor Anton Gruner, 
head of the Model School of Frankfort, an en- 
thusiastic pedagogue and a fervent disciple of the 
great Swiss educator Pestalozzi whose pupil he 
had been, and whose methods he followed in his 
school. Other teachers were there, aspiring, full 
of joy in their calling; among them Froebel 



80 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

found cono^cniiil conversation. One of these 
talks turned upon life and its object ; with frank- 
ness Froebel gave utterance to himself, letting 
the company take a peep into his heart just now 
tossing between hope and doubt, and he showed 
them some shadowy outlines of that vague ideal 
end of his with its dreamy yet persistent beckon- 
ings. 

Gruner listened, threw a glance into the seeth- 
ing depths of that chaotic soul before him, and 
spoke these winged words : 

" Be a teacher; give up architecture, it is not 
your vocation." 

Such was the voice which came from Heaven 
to the struggling youth, and at once he knew 
(like Telemachus of old) that it was the voice of 
a God. Yet he is at first overwhelmed at the 
proposal, and hesitates, though his friend at his 
side urges him to accept on the spot. But 
Froebel had never taught, had never entertained 
consciously the idea of becoming a teacher. No 
preparation, no position ; where, how shall I begin? 

Gruner again speaks, being verily the divine 
voice incarnate for Froebel in this conjuncture. 
He adds to his former statement: " We need a 
teacher in our school just now ; if you consent, 
the place shall be yours." Inspired Gruner (for 
so we must deem him in the present affair) thus 
gives the golden opportunity to Froebel, after 
speaking the God-sent word of destiny. 



IN PUBSUIT OF A VOCATION. 81 

Still the young man hesitates, asks time to 
think the matter over. AVell he may, for it 
seems a complete upsetting of all his plans. 
Soon, however, he hears that his testimonials, 
which were to be sent to him, and which he 
held to be very necessary to his success in 
the prosecution of his intended calling, had 
been lost. Listen to him now: " I interpreted 
this mishap to signify that Pro\ddence Himself 
had broken down the bridge behind me and cut 
off my retreat. Willino^lv, lovfuliy I seized the 
offered hand, and soon was teacher in the Model 
School at Frankfort-on-the-Main." 

Such is his own record of his second birth, 
the birth into the work which he has to do in 
this life, after many pains of parturition. Yes, 
the child is actually born, and the sympathetic 
reader will greet the new appearance with a 
hearty salutation : 

Ich salutire dich zum neuen Lebenslauf, 

III. 

Transition, 

So we have made the great transition from the 
youth Froebel to the schoolmaster Froebel — 
from the uncertain, fluctuating youth with all 
that inner sea of possibilities, fermenting, gener- 
ating, seeking to give birth to something, into 
the grand reality of his life, his God-sent voca- 



82 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

tion, which is to call into activity every good and 
noble perm in his soul, with a weed or two 
sprouting in between now and then, it must be 
confessed. A great event for him, and interest- 
ing to the interested reader of this book, who 
has had or will have, or perchance even now has 
just such a crisis in life. 

Quite a discipline the youth has passed through 
with father, step-mother, uncle, brother, and 
with the whole line of employments and em- 
ployers, as they have risen in shadowy procession 
through the meanderings of the preceding narra- 
tive. But all this he might have undergone 
without becoming Froebel the educator, if we 
except one apparently fortuitous event. All this 
and worse than all this others have experienced 
without its making them people of any great 
consequence in the world. What then shall we 
select as the specially shaping fact in the fore- 
going chain of incidents of Froebel' s youth? 

At Jena the poor motherless country-boy, by 
an accident happening to be turned that way, 
received a marvelous adoption by a new mother, 
who took him to her bosom and gave him of her 
immediate sustenance, veritably the ambrosial 
food of genius. Among all the youths there at 
Jena assembled, the most ungainly and unlikely, 
the least prepared probably, if we judge by 
external signs, him she elects at the opening of 
the new century to be the educator for the 



m PUB SUIT OF A VOCATION. 83 

future — a most remarkable choice, if we look at 
appearances. Still she takes him as her infant, 
so to speak, and rears him and trains him just to 
be the great trainer of all human infancy, which 
is soon to be the grand new field of education. 

The most important event, therefore, the truly 
genetic event in the youthful period of Froebel, 
is the fact which we have already sought to ex- 
press in the statement: at Jena Froebel was 
suckled by the Time-Spu'it. For she . is the 
mother of all geniuses, who get. their creative 
principle from her sustenance, and who, whatever 
be their natural gifts, must be at some period of 
their career fed on her mother' s-milk if they are 
to do anything truly original and masterful — do 
any deed or think any thought which whisks the 
ao^es around a new corner or leads mankind into a 
new epoch. 

And now, out of tliis seethino^ hurlv-burlv of 
youthful change and manifold striving, we have 
seen the young man unfold into his permanent 
element, into his vocation from which he will 
never henceforth swerve, though within its bounds 
he will have to undergo still a great training, and 
to pass through his share of the ups and downs 
of human existence. 



:Boo\i Seconb. 



Such is the term which seems at last, after 
some waiting and spying around for a better, the 
most appropriate to designate Froebel during 
this long middle period of his life, lasting thirty 
years. He is teacher — subordinate, principal, 
enthroned, dethroned, expatriated — the whok^ 
scale of human destiny he runs through, from the 
highest to the lowest note. Still he keeps his ej^e 
fixed unswervingly on the one great lode-star, his 
vocation, though the storms of life dash him 
hither and thither on man}^ shores — from Frank- 
fort where he has now arrived, through Keilhau, 
where he will stay many years, to Switzerland, 
(84) 



THE SCHOOLMASTEB FBOEBEL. 85 

where he Avill conclude his schoolmaster's jour- 
ney manship, and pass over into his kindergarden 
epoch. 

Now this our Second Book, quite lengthy, di- 
versified and complicated though it be in its 
happenings, has yet one great central fact which 
we may here call for short the tragedy of Keil- 
hau, the rise and fall of Froebel as principal of 
the boys' school there, coupled with a mighty 
domestic undercurrent, which when brought to 
the surface as it must be, reveals the working of 
the Fates and Furies of the Family Froebel. A 
play of these Dark Powers strangely passes be- 
fore us, which recalls the fabled House of Pelops 
with its old Greek revel in the hates of kindred, 
of course without the ancient savagery of blood 
and murder. 

The present is, therefore, the middle Book, 
and hence is transitional, mediatorial, and spe- 
cially disciplinary. Schoolmaster our Froebel is 
here, but he is in training, often j:errilic in its 
laceration of the soul, for another and in his 
case higher vocation — to be founder of tiie 
kinder o^ar den. Throuo^hout this Second Period/ 
there is a secret undertow which rises to the top 
in the Third Period and becomes the culmination 
and fulfil hnent of his life's task. 

Picking up Froebel where we last dropped 
him Ave find that he has received a new birth, as 
it were, being now born into the consciousness 



86 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

of what is to be his work in this world. Signifi- 
cant is such a moment to us all ; specially so to 
the drifting youth Froebel, who on the spot 
beo-ins to unite those two warring elements of 
his previous life, the external and the internal 
needs, or the bread-winning and the soul-devel- 
oping; the Real and Ideal, hitherto in furious 
discord, begin to coalesce in the new vocation. 

His inner aspiration had been, as he states, 
*' perfection of myself," which, however, clashed 
horribly with his economical calling, and drove 
him with a whip of thorns over all Germany. 
But when he sees that he must share what he 
receives, that he must give away the spiritual 
gift which he gets in order to possess it truly, 
then he becomes the educator ; his own pursuit 
of culture will be selfish unless he turns it back 
and imparts its fruits unto others — which is 
instruction. Not acquisition, merely, but also 
impartation must be his ; thus he has united the 
struggling dualism between vocation and aspira- 
tion . 

So he becomes teacher, and he feels soon that 
" the ideal of human perfection which I bore 
within me I had the capacity and the energy to 
realize outside of me," and that this was the inner 
ability of the teacher. " As the realization of 
the perfect man is the highest which the mind 
can conceive, so a life devoted to the education 
of the human race is the worthiest and hiofhest 



THE SCHOOLMASTER FBOEBEL. 87 

conceivable life. And the pursuit of this end is 
what ennobles and perfects the man." (12) 

Truly a loftv view of his new calling:, to which 
he now remains faithful to the end of life. No 
more soul-drifting, no more uncertainty about 
his vocation ; he has sealed his life with an inner 
vow, he is a consecrated spirit to his cause. 

Speaking of this period later in the same letter, 
he says: " From this moment on, I determined 
to give up my life wholly to education, for I was 
convinced that only a life devoted to education 
could procure in me, and outside of me in the 
world, the existence most fervently desired, and 
long since dimly anticipated — that existence 
which was working within me as a dark presenti- 
ment, when I intended to Live in the country. 
Everything which I then dreamed of, I saw real- 
ized in my new vocation." 

Let the foregoing extracts (designated by 
quotation marks) serve as a kind of suggestive 
prelude to the coming Book, all of them being 
taken from a letter of Froebel's to his brother 
Christoph , written within two years after his start 
at Gruner's. Four chapters are in this Book — 
but let us pass at once to the first, which brings 
before us Froebel, the schoolmaster, taking his 
long pedagogical course, never before or since 
heard of in any Normal School. 



CHAPTEB FIRST. 

FROEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 

Thus we characterize Froebel in the present 
portion of his career: he is both teacher and 
pupil, the educator must be educated to his voca- 
tion. Born teacher he is, no doubt; still even 
the artisan, the blacksmith, has to learn the use 
of his tools, hammer and tongs and anvil. 
Plumped suddenly dow n into Gruner's school, he 
Ib required to teach without ever having taught 
before, without ever having had even the idea of 
teaching, so he says; what can he do? He finds 
that he nmst, first of all, know something about 
his profession; so he at once hastens off to 
Pestalozzi, the Swiss schoolmaster at Yverdon, 
with Avhom Gruner was closely connected, to 
take some instruction. He returns to Frankfort 
soon and begins his work ; with success outwardly, 
(88) 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 89 

but Avitli deep inner dissatisfaction, for he does 
not know his vocation. So he must aoain to 
Pestalozzi, where he stays two years the second 
time. Much does he learn about his vocation 
and its methods from Pestalozzi ; but there a 
new ignorance rises into his mind's horizon. His 
knowledge of science, language, the arts, he finds 
to be defective ; really he does not know enough 
to be a teacher. Hence he must go to the Uni- 
versity again for study, but always having in 
view the profession of teacher. 

Froebel is, therefore, now serving his appren- 
ticeship to his vocation. Eleven years it lasts, 
from 1805 to 181(3; he will be thirty-four years 
old ere he deems himself ready to start off in the 
world on his own account. During these eleven 
years there will be many changes of places and 
persons in his life's panorama — Germany, Swit- 
zerland, Gruner, Von Ilolzhausen, Pestalozzi, 
Gottingen, Berlin, War, then back to Berlin. A 
varied shifting scenery of human experience, but 
through it all he remains faithful to the one 
great end : that of perfecting himself in his 
vocation. 

But another training, a deeper one, though 
unconscious, has begun at Frankfort in Froebel's 
soul. Gruner connects with Pestalozzi, and 
Pestalozzi is a world-historical character throucj:h 
the fact that he lirst sounded the note of popular 
education so loud that all Europe listened, not 



90 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

only the pedagoo^ues, but the rulers — ministers, 
kings, emperors. His word of warning to them 
is, unless you educate the people, they will 
burn you up, as they have done in the French 
Revolution. Off there in free Switzerland 
Pestalozzi heard the voice of the Time-Spirit 
proclaiming : Man must now be educated to free- 
dom, to an ordered freedom, for man uneducated 
but free will destroy civilization. Look at the 
conflagration yonder in France, there they wor- 
ship the Goddess Liberty, but the whole institu- 
tional world is burning. Man is henceforth 
ffoino^ to be free ; but which kind of freedom 
will you have, the educated, or the uneducated? 
So Pestalozzi, hearing the mighty call of the 
Ages, set to work at the very bottom, educating 
the people in the little school of his little town, 
which small light-point soon became the guiding 
star of Europe in the stormiest night of three 
centuries. 

Now we hold that Froebel heard this voice of 
the Time-Spirit when Gruner spoke to him ' ' Be 
a teacher," and the youth responded, " I shall." 
Following that same voice he goes to Pestalozzi 
at Yverdon and stays there till he clarifies himself 
in regard to his calling. And we must not forget 
that Froebel was nursed at Jena by this same 
Time-Spirit, coming to him there in the form of 
philosophy and romanticism, and of culture 
generally. But at Frankfort and still more at 



. FBOEBEL AS TEACH EB AND PUPIL. 91 

Yverdon he hears the call to impart this high 
culture to the people, to give it to all, to make it 
truly universal. Thus he will be the educator 
in the great spiritual movement with which the 
century opens. 

And in this same line of traininor he is to have 
a still stronger experience. Froebel is a Teuton, 
and the Teutonic folk-spirit is roused from its in- 
most depths to throw off the foreign domination 
of Napoleon, who is the colossal birtli of the 
French Revolution. The coming teacher responds 
to this call of his primitive folk-mother, and 
marches forth to battle for external freedom in 
the AYar of Liberation. A great experience, truly, 
his baptism in the spirit of his race before he 
tries to educate it to inner freedom ; he has to 
take this dip ere he is fully equipped for his 
task. 

And we may notice the gleam of a deep per- 
sonal faith dawning in the man : he believes that 
he, just he, is the re-incarnation of the teacher, 
he is not to be simply a teacher by trade, here 
and now, for so much bread and butter, but he 
has been a teacher from the very beginning of 
him, perchance from the beginning of the world. 
An adamantine faith in himself and in his call he 
is starting to manifest, which faith in himself will 
have mam^ pecuHar developments in the course 
of this biography. Let it be called his genius 
which is now getting aware of itself, and can 



92 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

ultimately believe in nothing else but itself and 
its own communications, received and given. 

Such is a brief anticipation of the inner move- 
ment of the present chapter, which is now to 
embody itself in the outer events of this period. 

I. 

In Gruner's School. 

The very next day after Gruner's invitation, it 
has been handed down that Froebel entered upon 
his new career, going into a school-room for the 
first time as teacher. Thirty to forty boys be- 
tween nine and eleven years old were there before 
him; how did he feel at the sight? Somehow 
thus : now I have found my vocation, now I 
know what I have been striving for in my dark 
unconscious struo^o^les and fluctuations. The 
view of that school-room made him feel at home ; 
nay, more, it made him feel that he had returned 
home after some long separation and estrange- 
nient. Had he ever been there before? Not in 
this conscious life ; still the whole scene seems 
not new to liim, indeed quite familiar. 

In a letter written to his brother at this time 
(end of August, 1805), he unfolds his inner con- 
dition on starting his Avork : "From the first 
hour my occupation did not appear in the least 
strange to me; on the contrary, I seemed to my- 
self to have been a teacher already for a long 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 93 

while, and in fact to have been born for the busi- 
ness. I cannot tell you in words sufficiently 
striking how peculiar was this experience of 
mine. It seemed to me as if I had never been 
willing to live in any other condition but this, and 
vet I confess that not the least idea of becomino^ 
a teacher in a public school had ever entered my 
mind. I find myself, when I am occupied with 
instruction, just in my element. You cannot be- 
lieve how deliohtf ullv the hours olide awav ; I 
love the children from the bottom of my heart, 
and when I am out of class I lono- to Q-et back to 
their instruction." (13) 

Such is the outburst of joy and wonder with 
which he o^reets his new vocation. Home ao^ain 
after much wanderino- ; it is not reallv a beo^in- 
nino' but a restoration; that longino^, straving 
soul of his has found the seat of its primordial 
activitv. Let us note the lurkinor faith of Froe- 
bel that the present is for him no new condition ; 
he appears to say: I have been here before, I 
have done this work before, it was born into me 
ere I was born. Like every genius he has in him 
a strain of pre-existence in which he once 
wrought and which he has to repeat in actual life. 
So the school and its task, the atmosphere and 
its suggestion, all seem familiar to him from the 
first moment; he is simply doing over again 
what he has done before. Clearly his calling is 
now to make real that which lies ideally within 



94 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

him, and which hovers around him with an un- 
seen presence the minute he steps into that 
school-room of Gruner's. 

But let these beliefs, dreamy enough, yet not 
to be left out of any human life, be here dropped 
for a look into more practical jiiatters. The 
truth is Froebel has had no experience ; he had 
shifted around nmch from one kind of occupa-* 
tion to another, he had tried his hand at nearly 
everything except teaching. It takes him only 
two days to find out that he must learn before 
he can impart. Already he had heard a good 
deal about Pestalozzi from Gruner and others ; 
he remembered reading an account of the Swiss 
schoolmaster in some newspaper during his boy- 
hood, w^hich account had stirred him deeply. 
What is to be done? Go to the fountain-head 
at once and there drink of the waters, off yonder 
in free mountainous Switzerland. 

Three days afterwards Froebel was on the road 
to Yverdon, where Pestalozzi had recently estab- 
lished his school. The latter received the visitor 
from Frankfort with great friendliness, who was 
then left pretty much to his own devices in learn- 
ing and seeing. He picked up what he could, he 
was evidently incapable of giving the school a 
searching investigation. Still he had his criti- 
cisms, which are set down in his Autobiography, 
but which seem to be rather an echo of his later 
opinions. He felt, however, the lack of unity in 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 95 

the school, unci seems to have noticed germs of 
future dissension. He observed that Pestalozzi 
himself did not seem to understand the mighty 
" spiritual mechanism " which had been set in 
motion there in Yverdon. The head of the school 
could give no clear account of its workings, but 
would always say to the visitor: " Go and look, 
it is going tremendously," giving to his words a 
naive touch of his Swiss accent. (14) 

Froebel could remain only a fortnight this 
time, but when he left he resolved to return as 
soon as possible and stay longer. So much, 
then, he has discovered during his brief visit : 
here is the thing which I must master, here is the 
man whom I must take up into myself ere I can 
unfold into my true inheritance. More or less 
dimly he ah'eady feels that he is to be the 
spiritual successor of Pestalozzi. Such was 
Froebel' s first short sip at the pedagogical foun- 
tain-head of modern European education in the 
year 1805. 

Returning to Frankfort, he throws himself into 
his work with a will. It seems that he was re- 
quested to make the programme of studies for 
the Gruner school — a strano^e matter when we 
consider his inexperience. 

This was apparently Froebel' s lirst attempt at 
drawing up a teaching-plan, upon which he 
always laid great stress, so great that it became 
a by-word afterwards at Keilhau. His scheme, 



96 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

however, was a complete success and won decided 
approval. 

The branches which Froebel taught in the 
Gruner school were Arithmetic, Drawing, Geog- 
raphy, the German language. He seems to have 
been most successful with Geography. He took 
the city of Frankfort as the center, from w^iich 
he worked outwards toward the four quarters of 
the Heavens, including the distinctive local points 
in a map. The river Main on which the city lay, 
was a line running through this map, and the 
distant hills were given in outline. Thus each 
pupil obtained a picture of the country nearest 
home, a picture which was most vivid in his daily 
experience, and of which he was required to 
make a drawino;. This method of teachino^ 
Geography is sometimes thought to be very 
modern, but it reaches back further than Froe- 
bel, to whom it came from Pestalozzi either 
directly or through Gruner. 

The Gruner school produced a deep influence 
upon Froebel, and evidently furnished a number 
of suggestions for his own later school at Keil- 
hau. There Avas a large inside yard which was 
used for play, to which much attention seems to 
have been given ; once a week every teacher took 
a walk with his boys, in city and country, mak- 
ing the same a means for instruction. The 
teachers played with the boys in the large yard, 
and thereby obtained insight into traits of char- 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 97 

acter which come out only in play. Also there 
was a garden connected with the yard. Both 
the principal, Gruner, and the assistant princi- 
pal, Nanni, had been pupils of Pestalozzi, and 
were full of the ideas of the Swiss educator. 
Froebel saw these in full operation, to be sure at 
second hand ; still he obtained the drift of the 
New Education. 

And yet Froebel began to feel discontent ; he 
could not stick to anything longer than a year. 
A large school requires fixed forms, it must have 
plan, order, organization. Under these forms 
Froebel chafed, he felt no longer at home, he de- 
manded freedom. He had been very successful, 
especially with his Geography ; at a public ex- 
amination both parents and teachers said : ' ' This 
is the right way of teaching Geography." But 
the set form of even the Gruner school had be- 
come unendurable, he must get free once more. 
Still he never thought of relinquishing his present 
vocation. In these days he utters his aspiration 
as follows: " I wish to educate men whose feet 
shall stand on God's earth planted in nature, but 
whose heads shall rise up to Heaven." 

Gruner saw that there was no use in trvino; to 
keep such an " excitable man," who had begun 
to kick everywhere in the traces. Froebel had 
made a contract to stay three years ; Gruner re- 
leased him willingly yet in a friendly manner. 

So Froebel o^oes forth ao^ain into the world a 



98 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

« 

free man, yet with the firm consciousness of a 
vocation. 

It is interestino^ to note Froebel's wrestle with 
o-rammar at this time. He resolved to perfect 
himself in French under a good teacher. He 
studied hard, the language was important, it was 
the time of the French domination. But he con- 
fesses that he made a failure, and this failure 
lay deep in his nature. He was in revolt against 
all forms ; how could \\q take to linguistic forms, 
words, phrases, parts of speech? Grammar is 
ordered lano^uaofe ; but Froebel was at this time 
averse to all order, except what he made on the 
spot. 

In fact, Froebel was incapable of learning 
grammar, and remained so to the last. He de- 
clares that this study of French had one good 
effect: it made him aware of his deficiency in 
German grammar. Nor could he spell correctly ; 
he misspells the word Ziel (^Zihl) in the verse 
he writes in Pestalozzi's album. So in his re- 
volt against form, he turns down the forms of 
grannnar and spelling and asserts his linguistic 
freedom. (15) 

II. 

Tutoring. 

Another strand had been already weaving 
itself into the teacher's life. While at the 
Gruner school he had been giving private lessons 



FROEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL, 99 

to three boys outside of bis ordinary work.. It 
so bappened that their reguhir tutor was about 
to leave them, so that they needed another. 
After considerable hesitati(pn, Froebel himself 
resolved to take the position. He did not like 
to give up his freedom again, but having had 
several months' enjoyment of it, he came to the 
conclusion that he must fit in somewhere, and 
yielded after a strong inner conflict. 

Thus Froebel takes the post of domestic tutor 
to the three sons of Herr Yon Holzhausen. He 
insists upon two conditions, from which he can- 
not be shaken : first, that he should never be 
obliged to dwell in the city with his pupils ; sec- 
ondly, that they should be wholly handed over 
to his control. In the country they were to live 
with him, forming an isolated group by them- 
selves. Thus he is parent as well as tutor ; his 
object seems to have been to change the environ- 
ment of the youths, one of whom he reports in 
good condition, one in a moderately bad, and 
one in a very bad condition. 

Froebel is now free of the forms of the regu- 
lar school, and of the family and of social life. 
He is autocratic educator, yet with a deep sense 
of his mission. Very unbending he is : the coun- 
try house was not quite ready, he was asked to 
take up his abode for a few days with the boys in 
their town home. Not a bit of it; he resisted 
the proposition and gained his point. So he be- 

LofC. 



100 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

gins this new pliase of liis educational career, 
that of domestic tutor, in July, 1807. 

He was twenty-five years old, as far as age 
went, but was younger by several years in devel- 
opment. Full of aspiration, restless,' writhing, 
helpless; he describes his internal condition at 
this time as * ' a perpetual conflict with the estab- 
lished." Totally dissatisfied with the existing 
order of things, in fact with all order; then fol- 
lowed the deeper dissatisfaction, namely, with 
himself. He began to long for more adequate 
knowledfife, and with it came a desire to return to 
the University — a reminiscence of Jena in spite 
of eJena. 

What is it that is tearing him asunder? Just 
the desire for unity. He sees everything in a 
state of separation and division, so he revolts 
and falls into the same state. He declares that 
the loftiest thought which dawned upon him at 
this time was the following: "All is unity, all 
rests in unity, proceeds from unity, leads to 
unity and returns to unity." This sounds like 
some passages in the Educatio7i of Man, So 
Froebel in his search for unity becomes abso- 
lutely disunited within himself. That which he 
saw internally and that which he realized exter- 
nally were separated by a chasm which he could 
not pass. 

Particularly was he troubled with the want of 
all organic connection in the branches of instruc- 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 101 

tion. Still he performed his task as well as he 
could, living alone with the youths in the coun- 
try. It was indeed a getting back to nature ; no 
family, no society, no institutional life — a little 
world ruled absolutely by an autocratic peda- 
gogue. The boys cultivated the fruits of the field 
and gave them with delight to their parents. A 
sylvan idyllic existence, probable best for those 
spoiled city-boys, but otherwise hardly an ex- 
ample. 

Froebel had the tendency to turn back and to 
reflect upon his past life. He now subjected his 
former stages of development to a strict exami- 
nation. In these boys he lived over again his 
own youthful days. Already he had seen into 
their condition by the light of his own experience 
in childhood. 

This isolated school-life with a few boys has 
also a foreshadowinoj of Keilhau. He grives 
them games and occupations of various kinds. 
There is the same freedom of the boys on the 
one side, and the same absolutism of Froebel 
the teacher on the other. AU is chaotic yet 
germinal; here we find play, occupations, the 
garden, nature, long walks — a kind of un- 
organized Keilhau. 

Froebel himself felt the defect deeply: no 
connection, no unity, complete isolation. In 
about one year he had enough of this freedom, 
of this return to nature. He must somehow 



102 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

get an organizing principle — where? Again he 
thinks of Yverdon and Pestalozzi. He insists 
upon it with the parents, so he with the three 
bo^^s are off for Switzerland in 1808. 

Thus ends the lounging, tutorial, masculine life 
in the country — Froebel's first attempt to em- 
body Eousseau. The mother of the boys, Frau 
Yon Ilolzhausen, a superior woman, was evidently 
tinged with the same doctrine, which lay deeply 
in the time, and influenced many cultivated people 
throughout Europe. She had high appreciation 
of Froebel, indeed a kind of divination of his 
genius; she will remain his life-long friend, and 
keep up a correspondence with him many jenrs 
after his personal relation to her children has 
ceased. 

A special gift of Froebel seems to have been first 
called into exercise during this stay in the coun- 
try : that of inventing means for occupying chil- 
dren to advantage. Forms in paper, pricking, 
cutting, folding, at first ; then he passed to work 
in cardboard and in wood ; truly a prophecy of 
the kindergarden occupations. The garden was 
also there and cultivated as a part of the educa- 
tion of the boys ; they were likewise practiced a 
o^ood deal in buildins:. So out of that countrv- 
house near Frankfort there seems to flash a search- 
light through thirty years of Froebel's future to 
the little town of Blankenburg in 1837. 

But enoufi^hl On a summer's dav in 1808 the 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 103 

country-house with its garden is deserted by its 
four occupants, who turn their steps toward 
Yverdon, Switzerhmd, where is the school of 
Heinrich Pestalozzi. There Froebel is both 
pu})!! and teacher undisguisedly, both receiving 
and orivina instruction. Note that hereafter he 
will be a strong advocate of the pupil-teacher 
and will introduce him at Keilhau, therein re- 
enacting his own experience. Nay, in FroebeFs 
greatest book, "The Mother Play-songs," the 
mother is both pupil and teacher. But we have 
arrived at Yverdon, let us take a glimpse of the 
scene. 

III. 

Castle Yverdon 

Yverdon lies on the south side of Lake Neuf- 
chatel, one of the small Swiss lakes, amid moun- 
tain scenery with all its variety of height, slope, 
valley, stream, sheet of water. It is an old Bur- 
gundian castle, connected with the name of 
Charles the Bold. Four massive towers rise in 
a kind of competition with the surrounding 
mountain peaks. It had already fallen to ruin 
when assio^ned to Pestalozzi for his school, the 
raven and the rook nestled in its walls. 

But now two hundred boys and sometimes 
more, with teachers, visitors, distinguished guests 
gave to the decaying medieval edifice a more 
busthng life than it had ever known in its palm- 



104 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

iest days. It seemed to rise out of its medieval 
sleep of death into the modern world, indeed into 
the most modern part of the modern world, for 
it had become suddenly the home of the New 
Eduration. Truly a wonderful resurrection for 
those cracked, tumbling, moss-grown towers ; 
vivified by an Idea, it sprang up almost in a 
night like the castle of a fairy tale. 

Inside the edifice little comfort and no luxury 
could be seen. Only the most indispensable 
articles of furniture were there, and they of the 
rudest make. In the midst of the tumult of an 
assembling class the teacher would put up his 
desk and begin. Rooms were not attractive 
though spacious; everything seemed in a sort of 
pell-mell. But the spirit was there, Heinrich 
Pestalozzi, and beside him stood his wife. 

The boys, however, were having a good time. 
They could sport on the grass of the meadow, or 
bathe in the waters of the lake. In longer walks 
they could ascend the Alps, behold the mighty 
chain of peaks from Mount Blanc to Pilatus, 
look down from the heights into many lakes, 
towns, vallej^s. No student, and seldom a 
teacher, wore a necktie or a hat. The boys would 
wash during the coldest days of winter in a 
trough of half -frozen water. The food was of 
the simplest sort. At five o'clock in the morn- 
ing they had to rise from their beds and begin 
the tasks of the day. The teachers rose at four 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 106 

and even earlier ; no drones could stay long in 
that hive. 

Marvelous was the native strength here mani- 
fested. An energy went forth like that of 
Nature herself, as she showed her might in the 
surrounding Swiss mountains. Very plainly it 
was a return to Nature, to that colossal power 
which they drank in from the landscape. This 
elemental energy was in the soul of Pestalozzi, 
though it was directed not now to the upheaval 
of masses of mountainous earth, but to the ele- 
vation of masses of mankind through education. 

Pestalozzi' s school was an image of Switzer- 
land. It was a collection of strong, independent 
teachers, it was cantonal, not central; a land 
made up of separate mountains and little states, 
a sonderhund always ready to fly asunder. Not 
long before this time the Helvetic Republic had 
gone to pieces, and the cantonal government 
resumed its sway at Bern, through which Pesta- 
lozzi had been compelled to give up his school at 
Buro^dorf and to remove to Tver don. This was 
in the year 1803, the time of the so-called Act of 
Mediation. 

So the school reflects the Swiss government, 
the Swiss character, yea, the Swiss scenery with 
its mountain peaks piercing Heaven in solitary 
sublimity. All is individualized, unity is not the 
virtue here. Still in such a cradle the New Idea 
with its strong stress upon the individual and his 



106 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

right had to be born and then imparted to the 
people of all nations. In a similar manner 
ancient Greece with its separating mountains and 
valleys reared the independent city and the inde- 
pendent citizen, and first vindicated freedom for 
Europe against the absolutism of the Orient. 

Mighty is such a spirit, calling forth the strong- 
est and intensest powers of the individual, but it 
has the germ of dissension and dissolution from 
the start. The prodigious fullness and energy 
of the life at Yverdon was the chief attraction, 
and overwhelmed the visitors who flocked thither 
from the remotest parts of Europe and even from 
America. And that was one of the troubles. 
The school began to degenerate into a show, 
the exercises began to be spectacular, and to 
manifest a strain of untruth, of unreality. 

Plague take the visitor anyhow ! the earnest 
teacher often exclaims inwardly. When a school 
begins to attract a stream of spectators pouring 
in daily and even hourly, it is lost. They will 
corrupt the best training in existence. The 
teacher and pupil ai'e diverted and perverted 
from their real object ; they are for the visitor 
to whom they must display. Pestalozzi himself 
noted the hoUowness and growing falsity of his 
school at this time, and also marks the show- 
spirit as the bane of his enterprise. 

And now we must touch upon that personality 
who centered all these disrupting influences in 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 107 

himself. Pestalozzi describes his advent into 
the school: "Down from the mountains of 
Tyrol came into our midst a youth who had not 
a trace of the artificial culture of the time, but 
who was gifted with a hidden native force which 
none of us, least of all myself, suspected. In 
the highest degree religious after the Catholic 
way, with Ave Maria on his tongue and rosary 
in hand he descended upon us, and in the might 
of his spirit he quickly outstripped all the pupils 
of his class, and then all his teachers and soon 
became himseK the teacher of those who a short 
time before had taught him, and who had re- 
tjarded him as the most uncivilized bein^: that 
had ever stepped inside the institution." (16) 

Such was the advent of the Tyroler boy 
Joseph (or Josias) Schmid, an earth-born son of 
the Alps, possessing the elemental energy of his 
own mountains. Pestalozzi confesses that he 
was drawn by the strongest secret bond of sym- 
pathy toward the unpolished youth ; indeed they 
had somethins: in common Ivino^ far down in the 
hidden springs of nature. 

Now began the rupture. Schmid, though the 
most capable of all the teachers, roused bitter- 
ness, jealousy, hostility on every side. He is 
portrayed as the ver}^ devil of Yverdon, and the 
evil spirit under whose influence Pestalozzi fell in 
his weakness and old age. The uproar became 
so great that Schmid had to quit the school in 



108 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

1810. His chief opponent was a clergyman by 
the name of Niederer, who sought to unify the 
distracted work of Pestalozzi by giving to it a 
theoretical basis in philosophy. But the school, 
the whole movement, Switzerland itself with its 
mountains, was hostile to any such unity. 
Schmid was hostile to it, born of the moun- 
tains, and Pestalozzi* could not understand it. 
The teachers all demanded a government examina- 
tion, in order to vindicate the school, all except 
Schmid. The examination, however, turned out 
unfavorable for all except Schmid, whose work 
was highly commended by the commission. Such 
was the boomerang which they hurled against the 
Tyroler boy. 

After Schmid 's departure the school goes from 
worse to still worse, until finally Niederer his 
great enemy begs him to return and restore mat- 
ters. Return he does, and as^ain the old feud 
springs up with tenfold bitterness ; but this time 
Schmid is not driven out, on the contrary he 
ousts the whole set of teachers, who have to take 
their departure from the school, leaving him in 
possession of the castle and of Pestalozzi, and 
calling him with great unanimity the devil of 
Yverdon. 

But it belongs not to our theme to give the 
history of Yverdon, only in so far as it inter- 
weaves into the life of Froebel who was present 
during the period of strife, who saw and talked 



F BOB BEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 109 

with the demonic Schmid and praised his work 
specially. 

And the interestins: fact is to be noted that the 
same sort of a demonic spirit will enter his own 
school at Keilhau, will rend it with dissension, 
and finally brins; it to the vero^e of ruin. As 
Yverdon had its Schmid, so Keilhau will have its 
Herzog, and both of them from the Alps. Thus 
Froebel had a forecast of his own fate in the 
break-up at Yverdon, though he was so difi:erent 
in character from Pestalozzi. 



lY. 

Froebel and Pestalozzi. 

Accordingly in the summer of 1808 Froebel 
with his three boys makes the journey to Switz- 
erland and arrives in due season at Yverdon. 
They were not able to get lodging at the castle, 
but found rooms in its neiofhborhood, so that 
they took most of their meals there and shared 
fully in the life of the school. This life Froebel 
describes as mighty ; he was seized by it and 
borne forward resistlessly. He attributes it to 
Pestalozzi whose word had somethino^ in it which 
roused and elevated the soul in the most powerful 
manner, yet it was an indefinite, intano:ible 
something. Such was Froebel' s first response to 
that Titanic upheaving spirit which had somehow 



110 THE LIFE OF FRO E BEL. 

broken loose from the mountains of Switzerland, 
and taken lodgment in a school. 

He became a pupil again, he went to all the 
classes, he was one of the boys with the boys, 
joining in their games, excursions and bathings, as 
well as in their studies. Something of the kind 
he had done already on a small scale at Frank- 
fort; teacher still, he is chiefly pupil now. 

There were many other teachers who had 
turned pupils in that school, some having come 
of their own accord, others having been sent by 
their governments to study the method of Pes- 
talozzi. These mature minds commingled in 
daily intercourse, exchanging ideas, discussing 
principles. Very fruitful w^as such conversation 
to the somewhat isolated Froebel, who discovered 
many of his own deficiencies of training and cul- 
ture by comparing himself with these men. Here 
was indeed the new University, the creative 
center of Europe's educational thought, the fresh 
starting-point for all education. In striking con- 
trast it stood to that other sort of University, 
state-fostered and palace-housed, with its rows 
of sleek, well-combed professors, rehearsing 
what they had learned to their students and 
regularly drawing their salary. Not only an ele- 
mentar}', but an elemental University, springing 
with the might of nature out of the Alps. 

So we can see Froebel flinoinor himself into 
this roaring w^hirlpool of life, absorbing all that 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. Ill 

he can hold, which is much, and which will here- 
after connect him by direct spiritual descent with 
Pestalozzi. 

Of Froebel's stay at Yverdon we have two 
accounts, somewhat full, both by his hand. The 
first is a report addressed to the Princess Regent 
of Schwarzburg Rudolstadt. It is dated Yver- 
don April 1-27, 1809 (printed by Lange I, 124 
et seq.). It was, therefore, written less than a 
year after his arrival. Here we see him as the 
zealous follower of Pestalozzi, whom he com- 
mends throughout. The second account is con- 
tained in his Autobiography (Letter to the Duke 
of Meiningen) whose date is commonly stated to 
be 1827, and shows Froebel looking back at his 
Yverdon experiences through a vista of nearly 
twenty years. This account is of quite a di:ffer- 
ent character ; it has more criticism than com- 
mendation. Of both these accounts we shall take 
a brief note. 

The first, addressed to the Princess Regent, gives 
a pretty complete survey of Pestalozzi' s method 
in all the elementary branches. Moreover, the 
infant is not neglected in this scheme, but has 
particular attention. Its teacher is the mother, 
who is to have her special instruction, which is 
laid down in Pestalozzi' s Mothers' Booh which 
Froebel often cites in this report, and defends 
warmly against certain attacks. 

The reason for his addressing this report to 



112 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

the Princess Eegent does appear. I cannot find 
anywhere that she requested it froniFroebel. It 
seems to have been his zeal for the new educa- 
tion, and he expresses his hope that Pestalozzi's 
method will be introduced into the public schools 
of Ills native country. Did he expect to be the 
appointed means for such an introduction? If 
so, he missed his purpose. 

The second account above alluded to (in his 
Autobiography) is written in a different mood. 
He now brings out strongly Pestalozzi's defects, 
mingling his criticism with some praise. He 
complains that he did not find either unity or 
completeness in the course of study. He again 
overhauls the programme and finds a good deal 
of fault with most branches, even with Pes- 
talozzi's religious instruction though he praises 
some things, such as music. 

On the whole Froebel has begun to see the 
limits of the Pestalozzian method, namely its ob- 
ject lesson (Anschauungsunferricht) . It is a one- 
sided cultivation of, or rather devotion to, the 
senses ; it turns all e:ffort toward getting posses- 
sion of the external world of nature. It whirls 
the student outward and generates a tremendous 
force, but ends in multiplicity, separation, dis- 
union. 

Here lies the central source of the disorganiz- 
ing energy which was ever present in the school 
at Yverdon, and which could not be banished. 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHEB AND PUPIL. 113 

The supposed offenders would leave, still the 
trouble remained, and would break out afresh. 
The demon really lay couched in the principle 
itself, and only had its strongest utterance in 
Schmid. On the other side, Niederer souo^ht to 
unify the school in a philosoplw of his own, and 
for awhile dominated Pest alozzi, who understood 
nothing abstract, and who once plaintivel}^ said 
to an inquiring visitor: " I no longer understand 
myself ; if you wish to know what I think and 
will, you must ask Herr Niederer." 

Before Froebel leaves Yverdon he has become 
conscious that he can transcend Pestalozzi, by 
unifying his instruction, while keeping its main 
features. Froebel is more a man of inner intui- 
tion, that of spirit, while Pestalozzi is more a 
man of external intuition, that of the senses, j 
Such is the contrast, thouo^h each to a decree 
partakes of the other's qualities. 

In the report to the Princess Eegent we see 
that Froebel has already turned his attention to- 
ward children not yet of school age, and is look- 
ing into their possibilities of education. Also he 
has been thinldng of the mother as the first 
teacher of her child, and cites the enthusiastic 
expression of a certain mother : ' ' From Pesta- 
lozzi I learned to be a mother." Still further, 
we see that Froebel has deeply studied and 
assimilated Pestalozzi \s MotJiers' Booh {Buck der 
Mutter)^ out of which he will evolve in the fuU- 

8 



114 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

ness of time his own greatest book, the Mother 
Play-songs (^Mutter unci Kose-Lieder), Thus we 
find in Froebel already at Yverdon echoes of the 
kindergarden, faint and far-off, yet distinctly 
audible. 

But Froebel's immediate problem was the edu- 
cation of boys, and the school at Yverdon was 
essentially a boj^s' school, which Froebel will 
repeat at Keilhau, and transcend before he creates 
the kinder o^arden. In res^ard to the instruction 
and treatment of boys he is getting precious in- 
formation which he will not be slow to utilize 
and to improve upon when the time comes. 

More and more he begins to feel the inner 
scission which was rending Yverdon, and he is 
also aware of his growing separation from the 
school. Very different we must conceive his 
feeling to have been at the end of his second 
year from what it was at the end of his first. He 
has nothing to do but to go home, and off he 
starts for Frankfort with his three boys in the 
autumn of 1810. 

He remains till 1811 in the family Yon Holz- 
hausep teaching the boj^s, but as soon as he is 
free he starts for the University. It will not be 
Jena again, of which he has unpleasant memo- 
ries, but he concludes to go to Gottingen which 
had a great name at that time, and \vas one of 
the most progressive Universities of Germany. 

He has now been a teacher for six j^ears, or 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHEB AND PUPIL. 115 

rather teacher and pupil. Much has he learned 
in that time ; he has made his connection with 
Pestalozzi and the New Education and he sees 
the point where he can transcend the great Swiss 
schoolmaster in the matter of unity. This has 
now become his conscious pursuit. 

But he has also been made aware that he does 
not know enough. The intercourse with the 
teachers who had been sent to Pestalozzi in order 
to learn, had convinced him of his ignorance. 

If he is going to unify the course of study, he 
must know its contents . He had seen that one 
of the troubles of Pestalozzi came from the 
hitter's iofnorance of the thino^s which were 
tauo'ht in the school at Yverdon. The result 
was each teacher took his own way, and there 
was no strong guiding hand, really no central 
principle. 

So Froebel has come back with the idea of uni- 
fication more deeply planted in him than ever. 
But he must first know what he is going to 
unify. At this point we may note that the first 
half of the present chapter, showing Froebel as 
teacher and pupil till he finds the limit of Pes- 
talozzi as well as his own limit, is now concluded. 
Next he will proceed to remove this limit of his, 
which is ignorance, by going to the University, 
the orreat store-house of knowledo^e. Thus he 
seeks still further to complete his apprenticeship. 

One resolution he has brought away from 



116 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

Yverdon: when he starts his school, he will be 
master. And he will have unity in the branches 
taught; he will have a plan definite, fixed, stable 
as the Law, so that he will be called tyrannical 
and pedantic. In this respect Keilhau will be the 
opposite of Yverdon, showing the German abso- 
lutism or militarism versus the Swiss freedom or 
individualism. 

Pestalozzi and Froebel had much in common, 
but we must see the pivotal point of their differ- 
ence. Pestalozzi in his object-lesson has his eye 
upon the acquisition of knowledge through the 
senses primarily ; hence he can reform methods 
of instruction. Still such a view regards the 
child as a receptive being chiefly ; Froebel passes 
beyond this limit and regards the child as a pro- 
ductive being also. Hence his stress upon games 
and occupations by means of which the child is 
to learn through activity. The one develops 
more the acquisitive principle of the Ego, the 
other the creative. Hence Pestalozzi is domi- 
nantly the educator of the Intellect, Froebel is 
dominantly the educator of the Will. 

V. 

Gottingen and Berlin. 

Froebel now passes from being teacher and 
pupil together, which was his situation at Yver- 
don, to being the pupil alone, or the student, yet 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 117 

always with the outlook upon his vocation. The 
practice of teaching he must give up for a time 
in order to acquire more knowledge, for which 
his thirst is very great, too great in fact, since 
he tries to take too bio^ a draught at once and 
gets a surfeit. Just like the eager student; we 
have all probably done the same. So he quits 
his tutorship at Frankfort and is off, entering 
upon a new stage of his career. 

In the beginning of July, 1811, Froebel went 
to Gottingen. He does not tell the special attrac- 
tion drawins: him to this Universitv, which had 
its literary distinction and its set of poets, though 
far inferior to those of Jena and Weimar. Its 
irreatest name at this time seems to have been 
tlie naturahst Blumenbach whose reputation was 
world-wide, and who had a greater number of 
hsteners in his courses than any other professor 
in Europe. A letter from America was addressed 
to " Blumenbach in Europe,^' and it reached 
him. 

At the beoinnintr of his studies in Gottino^en 
Froebel threw himself upon the languages. The 
teaching of these had evidently been the most 
unsatisfactory part of his work hitherto. The 
truth is Froebel had by nature a small gift for 
speech; he was perpetually running his head 
against this difficulty. He was manifestly dissat- 
isfied with the lano^uao^e work at the Gruner 
School. And at Yverdon he took lessons in 



118 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Latin and Greek from a young man, but evidently 
witli little progress. 

What was the trouble? Froebel had an in- 
stinctive horror of grammar, which organizes 
human speech. Herein he was like Eousseau 
and the Rousseauists down to the present. He 
would not or indeed could not sit down and 
learn its forms with any degree of satisfaction or 
thorousrhness. Grammar to him seemed dead 
and he must have life. He never solved the 
problem, not at Gottingen, not at Keilhau, not in 
the Education of Man with its punning etymolo- 
gies and its ridiculous suggestions. Yet language 
is the center of elementary instruction. 

Froebel, well aware of this difficulty in himself, 
proposes to remedy it at Gottingen. Grammar 
left living speech divided up and scattered about 
in dead words and phrases — so he thought. 
Then see all the different languages ! Froebel 
resolved : '' I must unify them, so I shall go back 
to the first one and start with that." He natur- 
ally looks to the Orient and takes Hebrew, which 
must have been the primitive tongue, possibly the 
one which God spoke to Adam in the Garden of 
Eden, though Froebel does not say so. With 
Hebrew he associated another Semitic language, 
Arabic; upon these two he put forth his 
streno^th. 

From them he thought he could open a path 
to Sanscrit and Persian, and thus wheel all the 



FROEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 119 

languages of the world into one line of descent. 
The diversity of human speech must be gotten 
over, the confusion of tongues at the tower of 
Babel must be transcended ere much can be done 
with linguistic science. Froebel intimates that 
he had heard the rumor of the relationship be- 
tween Persian and German ; the report of the 
great movement in Comparative Philology, then 
in its beginning, had reached his ears, but he did 
not study it at this time or hereafter. For it 
turns on grammar, and the comparison of gram- 
matical forms, which Froebel simply could not 
master, through repugnance and inability. 
Grammar is an established order against which 
he revolts. (17) 

Accordingly the whole scheme of study at Got- 
tingen broke down in a short time; he threw up 
his Oriental studies, abandoning even Hebrew, the 
germinal tongue out of which all the rest were to 
evolve. Still he says he clung to Greek with 
unconquerable fascination. But in general he 
gives up : ' ' that mass of speech as it was thrown 
upon me, I saw no way to vivify " 

Meanwhile he began to be occupied with a far 
more congenial matter. He took walks by 
night in the neighborhood of Gottingen; on 
one of these walks he discovered a comet " for 
himself," though, of course, it was known be- 
fore. Its circular orbit, the round dome of 
Heaven above, and those little fire-balls, the stars, 



120 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

led him to reflect long and deeply on the Sphere, 
and its law. Here dawns upon him something 
which will stay with him through life, de- 
veloping more and more till it becomes the 
Sphere out of which will be unfolded the kinder- 
garden Gifts. So the comet with its suggestions 
begins to turn him away from languages to 
nature. (18) 

Meantime his money had given out, and he 
began casting around for something to do. 
Eather strangely he thought of making money by 
his Uterary work, w^hich would certainly have 
been a failure if he had tried it. But here Prov- 
idence steps in to help, an aunt unexpectedly dies 
at the rioht moment, leavino; him a small inherit- 
ance. This aunt, be it noted, was on his mother's 
side. During vacation he visits his brother 
Christian, a successful business man at Osterode, 
with great advantage to liiind and body, when he 
returns to his studies at Gottino^en. 

But this second period of his Gottingen career 
is different from the first. He has abandoned 
the study of languages, and given up his attempt 
to find the unity of speech. Now another unity 
attracts him mightily: the unity of Nature, of 
which he had received some glimmerings already 
at Jena, and which had found expression in the 
universal spherical law before mentioned. 

The branches which he now selects are i)hysics, 
chemistry, mineralogy, and natural history. This 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 121 

was a time of great discovery and progress in 
these branches. Froebel has at last found his 
own again, and becomes deeply absorbed in his 
work. The study and investigation of nature 
now seems to be the foundation of all education. 
He also tries his hand at the study of history, 
l)olitics, and political economy, evidently without 
nuich result. The laws which he observes in 
nature he seeks to identify as the laws of the 
human spirit in its development, and thus to 
make them educative. This is, indeed, just in 
the line of his own future work : nature is the 
orand means of unfoldino- man into the knowl- 
edge of himself and of the Divine Order. 

In this variety of nature studies, he finally 
concentrates upon one thing : the crystal. But 
herein the instruction at Gottinoen does not 
satisfy ; he breaks with it, and resolves to go 
elsewhere. He has heard of Professor Weiss, 
the great crystallographer of the Berlin Univer- 
sity ; thither he must go, for the crystal has 
now come to mean more to him than anything 
else. 

In reviewins: Froebel' s career at Gottins^en, 
we find him occupied supremely with unity, 
which presented itself to him in three phases : 
the unity of mankind, the unity of language, 
and the unity of nature. But he reacts against 
htnguage and gives himself up wholly to natural 
science, specially to crystallography. In this 



122 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

we may note the following movement, which 
has its significance in the kindergarden : from 
the sphere, the curvilineal, he passes to the 
crystal, the rectilineal — from Ball to Cube. 

At Gottingen he tried to do too many things 
in too short a time. Several languages at once, 
to be swallowed and digested in a few months ; 
no wonder he got a linguistic dyspepsia. Then 
nearly all the physical sciences, not to speak of 
a little by-play in the acquisition of the social 
sciences, he takes up at once. Also we must 
recollect that he was poorly prepared; thorough, 
reofular work he had never had. A tentative, 
changeful, dissatisfied going from one thing to 
another seems to have been his course at this time. 

Still Gottingen left its mark upon him for all 
his life. He seems to have gotten here (though 
this is not certain) his first insight into that edu- 
cative principle which runs through his later 
work : the child develops as the race has devel- 
oped. Herbart has also this principle and Her- 
bart had been at Gottingen before the time of 
Froebel, having left there in 1809. Froebel's 
search after the primitive linguistic source for the 
purpose of teaching language in accord with its 
origin and development, implies the above prin- 
ciple. 

But his most permanent and fruitful acquisition 
at Gottingen was his insight into the place of the 
sphere in the universe, or " the universal spheri- 



FROEBEL AS TEACHEB AND PUPIL. 123 



cal law " as he calls it, which Avill be a great 
creative power working through all his days. 

Froebel reaches Berlin October, 1812, after a 
visit to his brother. Here he finds what he wants 
in the lectures of Professor Weiss, which awak- 
ens in him more and more " the conviction of 
an inner demonstrable connection in all cosmical 
development." So we see the idea of evolution 
dimly fermenting within him, and he too in a 
sense may be considered as one of the precursors 
of Darwin. Such an idea, however, had been 
made familiar by Goethe. 

To earn money for his support he taught in an 
Institute founded by Plamann, who likewise had 
been a pupil of Pestalozzi. Froebel did not 
think much of this school, as he dismisses it with 
a few contemptuous words in his Autobiography. 
There, however, he met Jahn, affectionately 
called Father Jahn bv the Turner orsfanization 
which he had founded as a means for physical 
and moral training in order that Germany might 
free itself of French domination. Jahn was a 
great promoter of what may be called the grand 
Teutonic uprising of 1813, which led finally to 
the downfall of Napoleon. In such company at 
the Plamann school, Froebel could help hearing 
a stimulating piece of news. 

He was leading a very retired, studious life, 
when he was stirred up by a great national excite- 
ment and whirled with no small energy out of his 



124 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

solitary crystal life into a red-hot lava-stream of 
war fever. The German folk-spirit had been 
roused from its sleep, and the center of the up- 
heaval was Berlin, in the winter of 1812-13. 
The Teutonic and the Latin races had again come 
to a death-grapple, as in the olden time when 
Roma and Germahia had their mighty struggle, a 
struggle old as Hermann (Arminius) and the 
legions of Varus, continued through the descent 
of the Northern Peoples upon the Roman Empire, 
kept alive by the struggle between the German 
Emperors and the Papacy, represented in the 
defiant personality and deeds of Luther. Again 
a Latin conqueror, Napoleon, had sent the Teu- 
tonic folk under the yoke and oppressed them 
till they were rising up against him to a man, and 
once more were marching forward to the Rhine. 
Froebel responded to this deep call of his 
primeval mother Teutonia, threw aside his crys- 
tals and his books, and enlisted. Not very 
robust in body, yet tough, what there is of him, 
he will endure a soldier's life, which is now to be 
described. 

VI. 

Froebel as Soldier. 

Froebel was not the vouns^ fellow who oroes to 
war from a love of adventure. He was 31 years 
old and had a distinct purpose in life, which he 
was pursuing with strong concentration. Edu- 



FROEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 125 

cator he intended to be, but was making himself 
too much of a hermit, too self-occupied. He 
had to be shaken loose from his personal end and 
made to feel a still higher end, to which he must 
sacrifice himself, in order to attain his better 
self. Break away from the S(iliool-room, leave 
the beloved crystal (now Froebel's sweet-heart), 
shoulder a musket and be off to the battle-field 
in the name of fatherland. 

The soldier life of Froebel was an essential 
part of his education for making a teacher. He 
was becoming narrowed in his interest, absorbed 
too much in his own personal objects. Now the 
Spirit of the Age gives him a wrench, which 
means some fresh discipline ; he has to take a 
dip into the folk-spirit of his people, which 
makes him one with them in deed and hope ; he 
is united with that mighty, brooding, fecund 
soul, unconscious, yet the source of all great 
national movements as well as of individual great- 
ness. 

Here we may begin to make a distinction which 
runs through Froebel's entire life. Deepest love 
he had for that German folk as a native race ; 
that was what he longed to educate, and when it 
moved, as now, he moved with it body and soul. 
But he had evidently little love for the German 
organized State as it existed in his time ; it was 
a congeries of separate commonwealths without 
unity. He confesses that as a movement of 



126 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

these States or rather of the Prussian State, the 
war excited httle enthusiasm in him. But as an 
uprising of the German people, showing their 
deep folk-unity, he could respond. He says " I 
had no Fatherland, and Prussian I was not." 
The actual government was not his in form or 
spirit. 

It is characteristic that he would not join the 
regular troops, but enlisted in a free corps which 
was organized by Baron Von Liitzow for a pur- 
pose approaching guerilla warfare. These sol- 
diers were to hang on the enemy's flanks, strike 
him in the rear, harass him, and stir up the 
country people to resistance. So Froebel was in 
the army a free lance, he refused to be regular- 
ized, showing his dislike of routine and formal 
oro-anization. He was a ojuerilla, and somethinoj 
of the sort he remained all his life. 

With a company of Berlin students he goes to 
Dresden, headquarters of the corps, which was 
named the Black Hunters, or the wild troop of 
dare-devils. Jahn was alonV as leader, he knew 
Froebel from the Plamann School, and designated 
him as that strange fellow who could read won- 
ders out of stones and cobwebs. During; the 
first morning halt on marching out of Dresden, 
Jahn introduced to Froebel a companion in arms 
and a fellow-countryman, a Thuringian from 
Erfurt. 

This young man, not yet quite 21 years old, 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 127 

of fine stately presence was Heinrich Langethal, 
student of Theology at Berlin, ever memorable 
among the co-workers with Froebel. 

Soon Langethal found occasion to intro- 
duce to Froebel his dearest friend and com- 
rade, Wilhelm Middendorf, a Westphalian, 
from Brechten near Dortmund, also student of 
Theology at Berlin. Middendorf was not yet 
twenty years of age, thus eleven years younger 
than Froebel, while Langethal was ten years 
younger. Note this difference of age, as it 
accounts in part for the intellectual preponder- 
ance of the older comrade. Even a third con- 
genial friend appears by the name of Bauer, but 
him we shall here dismiss as he means quite 
nothing to the future of this narrative. 

Thus we find Froebel making friends, though 
he did nothing of the kind at Gottingen, nor at 
Berlin. A solitary genius; but the continuous 
association of the march and the camp is bring- 
ino" him out of himself and socializino^ him. He 
is going to school, but of a new kind; also he is 
still a teacher, for he begins instructing his two 
young companions in the educational Idea. Pu- 
pil and teacher still, though a soldier in the 
ranks, behold him both giving and getting. 
Surely his horizon is widening. 

And I beg thee, my reader, to take notice of 
that youth who hangs upon the words of bis new- 
found friend w^ith an interest wdiicli approaches 



128 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

absorption. He drinks doAvn the conversation of 
Froebel with a joy bordering on ecstacy, and is 
already tied to him by a bond stronger than life 
or death. That j^outh is Wilhelni Middendorf , 
he of the winning way and word, whom all men 
admire, and especially all women love at the 
first s^lance, but who will have one deep abiding 
love, and that is Froebel. Mark him well, 
for he is the Hector of this Froebelian Iliad 
now opening with the present war, and running 
through forty years of comradeship in life's 
conflict, when both will be laid to rest not far 
apart in place and time. The Hector we call 
him, more beloved than the hero himself, the 
Achilles, still he is not the hero. 

And before we pass on to the narrative we may 
note that another youth is beginning to attach 
himself to the little group or rather to Middendorf 
personally. His name is Prohaska, of slender 
build, with a piping voice and smooth lip showing 
no sign of even a pin-feathered moustache, yet a 
most valiant soldier ; he refuses to lie down when 
the enemy fire, saying, " I shall make no bow to 
the French." Somewhat shy and retired in the 
presence of the others, he grows more and more 
devoted to Middendorf, who once chaifed him 
for being so bashful toward the girls who flocked 
into the camps along the march to see the 
soldier hoys going out to fight for fatherland. 
Prohaska reddening replied: "I have i\\Q one 



FEOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 129 

onli/ love to give away — and that is for my 
country." 

Froebel seems now to have found his first real 
friends, friends of his genius, devoted to his Idea. 
On the march from Dresden to Leipzig the bond 
])etweenthe three keeps growing, Froebel's self- 
isohition is broken up, at least for the time being. 
An outer War of Liberation it is for the Teutonic 
folk, but an inner liberation is likewise going on 
in all three individuals, determining their future. 
The two students, with the enthusiasm of youth, 
become filled with Froebel's ideal of education 
and will assist him to realize it hereafter, Mid- 
dendorf clinging to Froebel till death. Pupils of 
Fichte and Schleiermacher both the new friends 
were, and there was many a chance to make the 
weary hours of the march and bivouac pass 
lightly through lofty discourse on philosophy. 
Chiefly the new educational Idea was talked of; 
probably more thought Avas given to it than to the 
enemy. The three paid a visit together to the 
beautiful Cathedral at Meissen, and drank in its 
architectural glories, nor did they fail to take a 
drink of the excellent Meissen wine, as Froebel 
himself has duly recorded. 

AVhen sterner duties relaxed, Froebel pursued 
his studies in camp ; he was seen with his little 
hammer knocking stones to pieces, and collecting 
mineralogical specimens. He read some books; 
especially he notes the descriptions of Nature in 

9 



130 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Forster's Ehinc journeys. He also casts a glimpse 
into the meaning of military discipline ; he seeks 
the inner necessity and connection of all the drill 
exercises. Not without use in his school will 
such experience be; also he observes in them the 
grand synthesis: " In their necessity I saw free- 
dom." 

Meanwhile the three friends would talk and 
discuss and dream a dream or two, man and his 
education being the chief subject; in all of which 
Froebel was particularly drawn toward Midden- 
dorf. He notes with profit '' how little the 
individual person belongs to himself in a state of 
war, but how much he belongs to the Whole, and 
how, on the other hand, he must be cared for 
and carried by the Whole." A salutary train- 
ing for Froebel' s individualism; even the Free 
Corps cannot do without discipline, and it has 
to be fed by some hand quite invisible to the 
common soldier. 

It is recorded that the friends smelt gun- 
powder in three pitched battles and in a number 
of skirmishes. The tender-hearted Middendorf 
found great difficulty in enduring the bloody 
horrors of the field of carnage. But like every' 
soldier he had to steel himself and look grim- 
visaged war straight in the. face without blench- 
ing. Soon he was called upon to perform a most 
painful duty. At the battle of Gohrde, his 
mate Prohaska refused to duck down with the 



FEOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 131 

rest of the company when the enemy delivered 
their fire ; the result was a bullet brouo:ht him 
down mortally w^ounded. Middendorf helped 
carry off his comrade, w^ho had kept growing 
more attached to him, both having shared every 
danger awake, and a common couch in their 
hours of repose. As the slender, smooth-faced 
form lay there in death and was prepared for the 
last funereal rite, the discovery w^as made that 
Prohaska w^as a girl — Eleonore Prohaska. An 
astonishing revelation to Middendorf, who was 
not without some innocent blushes ; vet the fact 
accounted for much that w\as mysterious and 
secretive in the fair young soldier's conduct. 
That touch of bravado in refusing to " boAv to 
the French," which she paid for with her life, 
was really to conceal her sex. Such was the 
romance of the Amazonian war-maid, wdio in 
spite of her * ' one only love for fatherland ' ' 
showed pulsations of another and perchance 
stronger love breaking up through her military 
disguise. Characteristic of Middendorf is the 
incident, w^hom Amazonian and other women 
looked on with favor all his life, but who, the 
innocent youth always, never knew of it, being 
absorbed in his " one only love." 

In the ranks of this Corps was the poet of the 
grand uprising of the people, Theodore Korner. 
In these combats he found the material for his 
war-songs, still sung by Germany wdien it 



132 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

marches out against the foe. ' ' Lyre and Sword ' ' 
is an immortal strain, voicing the great Teutonic 
folk-spirit, in its mood at this time. Korner fell 
on the field of battle aged 21, still singing out his 
soul with the ebb of his blood. Goethe has been 
reproached because he did not make himself the 
poet of his nation's great awakening. But he 
did not, and declares that he could not at his 
time of life and in his environment; one must 
be young and in the midst of the battle to feel 
and sing the war-song. 

Many were the marches and countermarches, 
most of them to little purpose, it would seem. 
Froebel declares that it was depressing and 
weakening ** never to know anything about our 
proper place in the grand totality of the cam- 
paign, never to see the reason of our many 
movements." Danced about like wooden pieces 
on the chess-board of war — how could he like 
that? Soon the whole things seemed to turn to 
a dream in which accident rules ; so he marched 
up and down through the country as through 
dreamland, not knowing why or wherefore, or 
whither. 

The peace of Paris was concluded May 31st, 
1814, and the Avar was over. Evervone of the 
Corps was permitted, if he so chose, ^to return 
to his former calling. Froebel went back to Ber- 
lin to resume his studies. 

He had been a soldier a little more than a year. 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 133 

What had he gotten by this rough experience? 
Much training which will be henceforth of serv- 
ice to him in the school. He has had his 
isolation broken into, if not broken up, and 
has been rendered more human and sociable 
by his connection with a large body of men co- 
operating in a common cause. Moreover he has 
developed into a capacity for deep friendship, 
havino^ made durintj^ this war the two o^reat 

CD CD C 

friends of his life. Then he has become truly 
national and German through the grand baptism 
of the folk-spirit. In whatever he does here- 
after, he can stand up before his countrymen 
and say : ' ' For you I have staked my life " — a 
great thing to feel and to be able to say. (19) 
But after this mighty expansion of his world's 
horizon there follows an equally great contrac- 
tion, a self -confinement in a little room for two 
3'ears with that sweet-heart of his already men- 
tioned, the crystal, from whom he had torn him- 
self away to go to the Avar. Now he returns to 
his love with an ardor tenfold on account of the 
separation. 

VII. 

Froebel as Crystallographe'r. 

Froebel had been promised a position in the 
o^overnment service of Prussia for his enlistment 
under the Prussian flao-. When he returned to 
Berlin he at once received the appointment, which 



134 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL, 

^. was a place in the mineralogical museum under 
Weiss. His occupation brought him into con- 
tact with minerals during the greatest part of 
the day, '* those voiceless witnesses to the silent 
* thousandfold creative activity of Nature." Such 
were now his most intimate friends, he lived with 
them all to himself, behind locked doors in a 
noiseless room. Is it a wonder that these stony 
messengers soon began to speak, and to tell him 
their message? In these so-called dead masses 
'^ of rock he comnienced to find signs of activity, 
development, law, yea the law of development 
and formation. Of some such thing he had 
long had a dim presentiment, at Gottingen, even 
at Jena ; "in the little crystal I saw the course 
of Providence for the development of the human 
race." 

Thus Froebel enters upon his distinctively 
crystallographic period, which runs between 
1814-16. Little society he has except the crys- 
tal, he becomes a crystal himself, and learns its 
speech. So thoroughly does he sink himself in 
this occupation that his soul gets a distinct crys- 
tallographic bent which lasts through life and 
is seen in all his schemes of education. Goins^ 
day after day into his chamber of crystal, as if 
into a cave of stalactites, he examines, fondles, 
and labels his specimens, he himself being the 
most remarkable specimen of the lot. 

Still we must record that other visions now 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUriL. 135 

and then penetrate even his stahictite cave. One 
day he meets in the Museum Wilhelmine Hof- 
meister, a highly cultivated Berlin lady, daughter 
of a Prussian official of some rank. How did 
she come to flit across his track just here? An- 
other case of Providence, possibly; at any rate 
they engage in conversation, Froebel unfolds to 
her his view of Nature, and then passes to his 
scheme of education. Keep her in mind; he will 
not forget her. 

The crystallographer secretly works away in 
his chamber, like a crystal slowly and quietly 
forming itself. He sees nature shooting into 
right lines out of chaos, thus she begins to take 
on her forms. He is workino- back to the 
primitive cosmical energy and beholding the 
universe oro-anize itself. All of this he will 
hereafter apply to the unfolding of man, and 
specially of the child, who also begins with an 
inner chaos which must organize itself mainly 
through education. 

His present occupation has its connection with 
the preceding war experience. In the latter he 
felt the dark unconscious folk-spirit in inner 
upheaval and final outbreak; it too showed an 
elemental energy and was forming on new lines ; 
in this mighty movement Froebel participated, 
and went forth as^ainst the resistino^ foe alons^ 
with his people. But having returned from the 
people's evolution, he turns to that of Nature, 



136 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

and beholds her in her secret workshop, making 
forms, uttering herself in native power, world- 
creating. 

Still even in his deepest absorption he does not 
intend to remain a crystal. He is thinking of 
his vocation, which must be that of educator. 
But how? For a time he imagines he may train 
himself to a Professorship in a University. But 
he soon finds this impossible. He has no clas- 
sical education, which is the patent opening the 
guild of the learned; then, too, he lacks a fun- 
damental training in Natural Science in spite of 
all his occupation with this branch. So he clearly 
sees himself shut out from the University, for 
which indeed he has no call. He never can be- 
come simply the erudite Professor in the dusty 
Halls of Learnino^, he is to be educator of the 
people in whose spirit he so deeply shares, finally 
the educator of little children. 

Still the voiceless crystals are telling him their 
message. He sees the Godlike is not alone the 
gigantic, but also the atomic, manifesting all its 
fullness and strength in the smallest of the small, 
in the tiny crystal, which again becomes a mirror 
for reflecting mankind's development and history. 
" Nature and man seemed now mutually to ex- 
plain each other." The inner process of the 
spirit he sees reflected in the outer process of 
the ph3^si(•al world. Man is, therefore, to 'get a 
knowledge of himself throuiJ^h Nature ; moreover 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 137 

he is to be educated by the study of Nature, 
through whose stages he is to unfold, because 
these are in a profound correspondence with his 
own stao^es of unfoldino-. Thus throusfh the ex- 
ternal world he returns to the inner world of 
himself, and develops into a self-conscious, 
intellio^ent beingf. 

So much the crystal is teaching Froebel ; but he 
proposes to apply his principle to other branches. 
He tackles language again, that black monster 
lying always in his path. He starts once more 
the study of the classic tongues. One of his 
thoughts pertains to the vowel. He deems that 
the sound of i designates ' ' the absolutely inter- 
nal " or the subjective, while the sound of a des- 
ignates " the absolutely external," the objective, 
the material; which example will suffice. 

Upon number too he speculates, with a view to 
his future vocation. In all he is seekinof the law 
of unitv. But chieflv in Nature he is tracing: the 
movement of the human spirit, and thus trans- 
forming it into one vast symbol for educative 
purposes. Herein he is developing and realizing 
the germinal tendency which he received at 
Jena. 

But what has become of the trio of friends? 
Toward the close of the war they were separated 
by the exigencies of the campaign. At the dis- 
banding of the Free Corps, Froebel knew not 
whither Middendorf and Langethal had disap- 



138 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

peared; but they had returned to Berlin also, 
and resumed then* theological studies. Unex- 
pectedly they all met again, but they did not at 
first see much of one another, Froebel locking 
himself up in his stalactite chamber, where he 
seemed to find his most congenial friends. But 
from this crystal-life he is shaken up by a new 
earthquake and cast forth into the world's events, 
whereby the three comrades are again thrown 
together into the swirl of the time. 

Napoleon returned from Elba in 1815, at once 
the call to arms resounded throughout Germany 
and all Europe. Our three friends hastened to 
enlist a second time. But so great was the 
rush of volunteers that students were sent back 
to their studies, and officials to their posts. 
Froebel as^ain returned to his crvstals, and worked 
away in secret, like an energy of Nature herself. 
One more year he has to pass in his stalactite 
chamber ; a professorship of mineralogy is offered 
him at Stockholm, which he refuses — not that 
way lies his vocation now. But in the year 1816 
he declares his freedom. He quits his crystals 
and leaves Berhn — whither has he gone? A 
new chapter of his life has opened. (20) 



FBOEBEL AS TEAGHEB AND FVPIL. 139 

VIII. 

Retrospect. 

We may now take a brief survey of this 
Chapter which is entitled Froebel as teacher and 
pupil, inasmuch as he shows himself as both 
throughout its course. And yet an inner move- 
ment must be noticed in these various chano^es. 
At Gruner's school, the starting-point, he was 
teacher yet he was learning much; he as pupil, 
however, stood in the background, for he was 
hired to instruct. 

But when he reaches Yverdon he is openly 
both teacher and pupil ; he goes to school him- 
self and shares in the instruction, yet also is 
tutor to the three boys Yon Holzhausen, who 
are with him. When he returns, he quits even 
this relation and becomes at Gottingen the pupil 
or student, yet always with the vocation of 
teacher in the background. His soldier life was 
a discipline, he says it was necessary for him as 
teacher; and then his crystallography simply 
unfolded his view of education, which he has 
now set out to realize, the training for it being- 
ended. 

Thus we see a movement in this Chapter from 
the teacher, implicit, crude, undeveloped, through 
the learner back to the teacher, who now 
has realized himself and has attained his own 
view of education. He has come to clearness 



140 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

about his vocation, at least lie has drawn its out- 
lines in his thought ; now he is ready to be not 
only an instructor under others, but an educa- 
tor under his own guidance, himself a principal 
of a school, like Gruner, yes, like Pestalozzi; 
even the latter he thinks he can transcend. One 
reason why he hurried o& to the University after 
his experience at Yverdon, was what he saw there ; 
he saw that Pestalozzi was ignorant of the 
branches taught in his own school, and so was 
victimized and dominated by his subordinate 
teachers. 

Froebel might well resolve nothing of that 
sort should happen to him in his career, and 
so he feels the necessity of the acquisition of 
the sciences, at least in their fundamentals, for 
his success and for his supremacy in his own 
sphere. He must know what is going on in his 
school, and not be helpless, as he saw poor Pes- 
talozzi to be. Still he will not wholly escape 
trouble on this side. 

Thus eleven years of his life have passed since 
he entered the Gruner school in 1805, — quite 
a fragment of human existence. Four of these 
he has been employed as teacher at Frank- 
fort, two as teacher and pupil at Yverdon, 
1809-11, five more as student, 1811-16, in- 
cluding the year's schooling in war. 

Let it now be understood that Froebel has 
come into clearness, not only about what his 



FBOEBEL AS TEACHER AND PUPIL. 141 

vocation shall be, but also about how he shall 
carry it out. He likes study at the University, 
is fond of philosophy, of science ; above all, he 
loves his crystals, those dear shapes, mute, yet 
very expressive, nay affectionate and confidential 
toward him rather more than toward any other 
man, imparting to him the secret of the Universe, 
the law of development. Of course he loves 
them, and with good reason; still he must leave 
them now. They have told him their story, and 
have nothing further to say. So he is off on 
a new career. 

Manifest it is that he is possessed of an Idea, 
all-controlling in life ; this possession is already 
so strong that he has given up what is dearest, 
because the Idea is still dearer. 

Such is what may be called the pedagogical 
training of Froebel during these years. It is 
essentially his Pestallozzian period, in which he 
comes into contact, directly and indirectly, with 
the great Swiss teacher, and elaborates the expe- 
rience of such contact. From Gruner to Pla- 
mann he teaches with and under Pestalozzians ; 
also he makes two visits to the Prophet himself 
at Yverdon. Through Pestalozzi Froebel may 
be said to have heard the voice of the age com- 
manding the education of the people; that which 
the Time-Spirit gave him at Jena, he must now 
impart to all in the best way. What the people 
were and what they wanted he began to feel deeply 



142 



THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 



through that dip of his into the folk-soul of his 
own Teutonic race in its grand movement for 
freedom during the War of Liberation. By this 
experience he comes to realize that man is an 
active, productive being, and that he, as child, 
must be educated through the Will, whose final 
end is freedom. Here is the point where he 
makes an advance upon Pestalozzi, being led 
thereto by the mighty struggle of his people and 
his own personal participation in their movement. 
And now forward to the deed thyself, and 
make thy thought real in an educational institute, 
for the hour has struck ; its locality cannot be 
in Berlin, nor anj^whcre in autocratic and bureau- 
cratic Prussia. Forth, then, to thy native hills 
of Thuringia, and make a start in an unobserved 
nook of liberty. 



CHAPTER SECOND, 

FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 

That is, Froebel is now to be seen in a new 
part of his career: he founds a school, an ideal 
school, and makes himself principal; he is no 
longer subordinate teacher or pupil. His ap- 
prenticeship to his vocation has been completed, 
an account of which has been given in the pre- 
ceding chapter ; noAv he sets up for himself and 
proposes to realize his ideal of education. 

In 1816 the new institute starts at Griesheim, 
a small Thuringian village, but moves the follow- 
ing year to Keilhau, where it remains. The 
present chapter will show no change of place 
except the one mentioned ; Froebel is now fixed 
to one spot for many years, in striking contrast 
to his former peregrinations and also the wan- 

(143) 



144 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

derings of his later life. A really permanent 
abode he has for the first and last time ; a full 
dozen years he will stay in his school as working 
principal (1816-28) ; his visit to Krause at Got- 
tingen is the beginning of his separation, the first 
break from it, which visit took place in 1828. Nom- 
inally, however, he continued to be principal dur- 
ing his absence in Switzerland and afterwards. 
So Froebel founded his ideal school and therein 
was obeying a tendency of the age, was listening 
to the suggestion of the Time-Spirit. Basedow 
and Pestalozzi had preceded him with such insti- 
tutions, and many have followed him with kin- 
dred attempts down to the present hour. Some 
kind-hearted, lofty-souled man, usually with a 
good deal of ambition, is inspired to become a 
world-reformer by educating the youth of the 
land on an entirely new plan discovered by him- 
self. This new plan, however, is sure to be 
some rehabilitation of the ideas set in motion 
over a hundred years ago by that great educa- 
tional magician and wonder-worker, Jean Jacques 
Rousseau, a pedagogical romancer and necro- 
mancer the like of whom never existed in the tide 
of time for blendins: truth and delusion into rav- 
ishing shapes and projecting them down the ages, 
where they continue to wander as restless ghosts 
troubling posterity. Let us note the common 
program: no more punishment, no more bad 
boys, for punishment is what makes them bad, 



FROEBEL AS PBTNCIPAL. 145 

no discipline through order and the return of the 
deed ui)on the doer; a goino- back to nature, to 
the country, to the woods, and a handing over 
the child to himself, to his natural impulses and 
caprices; and this is his training to freedom. 
A good deal of Rousseau we can observe in 
Keilhau, as well as in many recent attempts at 
founding the grand new educational institute of 
the ages, which is, of course, to reform the world 
at once and forever, if it can only oet half a 
chance. 

We have already pointed out that FroebeFs 
school had in it a strong element of Romanticism. 
There is the flight from the Real to the Ideal, 
embodied to some extent in all the teachers. 
The result is Keilhau has a decided, idyllic, 
poetic life ; we think of Rosalind and the Forest 
of Arden, and the flight of the lovers to the 
Wood near Athens, and other fusfitives from the 
real to the ideal world in the comedies of Shake- 
speare. This poetic strain runs through the 
whole Keilhau period and gives to it a peculiar 
coloring along with a kind of musical attunement ; 
the entire story of it could be made to sing, if 
the poet were on hand and sympathetic with the 
theme. Chivalry, too, had its little cult there, 
read of by the students in romance and history, 
reproduced in their sports and wanderings, and 
sung by them particularly in the ballads of 
Schiller. 

10 



146 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Then the other romantic element must be duly 
noted, that of the tender passion. Strange to 
say, through the doings at Keilhau there is a 
continuous undercurrent of Love, which, work- 
ino- silently, brings about most important conse- 
quences. The human heart is also there, and is 
performing its function, uniting and separating, 
making some people happy and others miserable, 
in the criss-cross of emotions, till all Keilhau be- 
gins to turn hazy with romance, and this biog- 
raphy, simply recording the events along its 
course, threatens to go over bodily into a novel. 
Strange threads of Fate the Love-God will spin 
all through this story of Keilhau, with effects 
reaching far beyond it and penetrating to the 
very end of life. A deeply tangled love-skein 
with passionate charges and counter-charges we 
shall have to look at in order to see total Keilhau 
in its truth. 

Such is the chapter before us, recording the 
rise and flowerino^ of Keilhau with its movement 
upwards; but there is in it also a movement 
dowuAvards, a destructive element, which is 
secret!}^ hurrying it towards its fall. Two oppo- 
site threads we shall find, a positive ascending 
one, and a negative descending one, which inter- 
weave and interact to the end of the chapter, 
whose general sweep is the rise, culmination 
and fall of Frederick Froebel as principal of 
Keilhau. 



FROEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 147 

I. 

Griesheim. 

On quitting Berlin Froebel turned his steps 
toward the village of Griesheim in his native 
Thuringia. There dwelt the widow of Christoph 
Froebel, his best beloved brother, whose name 
has already occurred often in this narrative. 
After the battle of Leipzig the typhus fever 
broke out in the hospitals and raged through 
central Germany like a pestilence. The Rev. 
Christoph Froebel, pastor of Griesheim, nursing 
sick Frenchmen, the enemies and invaders of his 
country, but still human beings, caught the 
malignant fever and died of it in 1813, the victim 
of his own benevolence. The widow was still 
living in the parsonage when she summoned in 
1816 Frederick Froebel to her assistance. 

She had three boys growing up whose educa- 
tion must be attended to if any of them were to 
become men of learning, as their father had 
desired. The eldest, Julius, was already eleven 
years old, and had begun his studies at the 
Eudolstadt Gymnasium. One da}^ toward dusk, 
uncle Frederick walked into the widow's house, 
to the wonderment of the boys, who took a 
good stare at the tall lank man with long hair 
and black hat. They probably did not know the 
fact, but he had not a penny in his pocket, 



148 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

having spent his last grosclien for a piece of bread 
a few hours before at Erfurt. Most of the way 
from Berlin he had traveled on foot. A close 
calculation he had certainly made in the matter 
of expense; still he had gotten through, and 
he doubtless showed a good appetite for the 
widow's supper that evening. 

Madam Christoph Froebel had often heard 
from her husband about the educational ideas of 
his brother, with whom he kept up an intimate 
correspondence. As far back as 1807, in a letter 
to Christoph, Frederick had unfolded the plan of 
a new educational institute, " very modest in its 
beginning, not to be trumpeted to the world by 
the newspapers," a simple family-school in the 
country. Nine years ago this was, but circum- 
stance had foiled the scheme till now, when the 
way to fulfillment seems to have opened. When 
the widow wrote him, saying, *' Come now and 
put into execution your plan with my fatherless 
boys, your nephews," Froebel answered, "I 
shall take the place of father to your orphaned 
children." (21) 

Such were the words which Froebel gave in 
response to her request — words capable of two 
different interpretations, as w^e shall see in the 
sequel. Take note of these words, my reader, 
for they bear in themselves the secret touch of 
Destiny; they have lurking in their innocent 
sounds the germ of misunderstandings and deep- 



F ROE BEL AS FBINCIPAL. 149 

est discords, from which conflict, disappointment 
of hopes, and bitterest hate between kindred 
will spring, and propagate its progeny of ills 
through a life-time. Well did the ancients hear 
in the Word (/afum) spoken at the critical 
moment a fatal note, for not alone was the per- 
son speaking there and then, but an unseen 
Power from beyond was secretly determining 
the future in that voice. Out of this promise 
of Frederick Froebel a dark thread of fatality 
will spin itself through his career to the very last 
day of his existence and will add somethins^ of its 
color to the history of the whole Family Froebel. 
In such fashion, then, our schoolmaster has 
arrived at Griesheim, with no money in his pocket 
but with a great idea in his head. Now he is 
going to form. a school which will be an epoch in 
education ; he is sure he can make an advance 
on Pestalozzi, whose work he had seen and stud- 
ied at Yverdon. He is certain of himself and is 
not hampered by an excess of modesty. But 
three boys are hardly enough for even a start ; 
accordinsflv he oroes to another brother. Christian 
Froebel, who lives at Osterode, and succeeds in 
obtaining two nephews there and brings them 
along. Now he is ready; accordingly on the 
13th day of November, 181(3, he opens the Uni- 
versal German Institute at Griesheim on the Ilm, 
with four nephews, the fifth one, little Theodore, 
joining afterwards. 



150 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Free development was the rule of the school, 
and the boys soon developed unusual freedom. 
Neckties were cast off, and hats were in no great 
demand; there was a return to nature after 
Eousseau's own heart. The youths roamed the 
woods in search of plants and animals and in- 
sects, accompanied by their teacher; they shot 
with bows and arrows, they threw spears; they 
pulled off shoes and stockings, waded into 
streams, made dams and mills and fortresses, 
and sometimes they would have a free fight. 
Two old ladies lived with Madam Christoph Froe- 
bel, her mother a;nd her aunt; these thought the 
boys were being ruined by their uncle and were 
often annoyed by the liberties of the youngsters, 
who seemed to have no due respect for age. Not 
an altogether pleasant situation for the old ladies 
desiring peace; for we must recollect that the 
school was in the family, though Froebel had 
rented his own house with a garden, where he 
lived with the two sons of Christian Froebel, 
while the widow still stayed at the parsonage. 

There is no doubt, however, that the four 
cousins were having a good time with uncle 
Frederick, traveling the thorny path of learning. 
He loved play as much as they did, and could 
lead them in it, nay, he was as much of a boy as 
they were, in spite of years; a spontaneous play- 
spirit was his, such as no other mortal man ever 
possessed, and he kept it up till he was seventy 



FROEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 151 

years old, when Death one day bade him stop 
phiying, at least on this side of Time. Interest- 
ing it is to see the kindergarden germ in his work 
ah-eady ; with these boys he is employing play 
for training, as he will hereafter employ it Avith 
the still smaller child — a thino' shockinof to the 
old ladies forever more. 

In doors the boj s had more serious work ; they 
were taught number and form — arithmetic and 
geometry; they were carefully trained in the 
native tongue, and were practiced in correct 
speaking and writing. Certain expressions prev- 
alent among the people of Thuringia at this 
time, having been caught up mthout being fully 
understood, from the profanity of the French 
soldier, like Sakkernondidieh, were remorselessly 
rooted out, not only on linguistic but also on patri- 
otic grounds. Of that hated French domination 
not a sign was to be left, especially such a corrupt 
sign. With astonishment we hear that the boys 
already at Griesheim were taught modeling, 
paper-folding, form-pricking; yea, we learn that 
Froebelian drawing in net-work was thus early 
practiced by pupils, one of whom has left on 
record that it was extremely fascinatino^. So far 
back did the kindergarden occupations start to 
sprouting in Froebel's soul. (22) 

Thus the Universal German Institute, having 
gotten under way, sails merrily through the first 
scholastic year 1816-17. Froebel, optimistic, 



152 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

enthusiastic, and quite incapable of deceiving 
anybody but himself, now summons his compan- 
ions-in-arms, those two friends out of the War of 
Liberation, Middendorf and Langethal, to enlist 
under his banner. For he had begun on his own 
account a second War of Liberation, the inner 
one, which, however, was to be carried out in the 
spirit of the first, uniting the German folk in one 
o-reat movement for enfranchisement. So his 
voice went up: Come, my fellow-soldiers, and 
help me light tliis new battle against the Powers 
of Darkness mightier than Napoleon. 

The first to respond was Wilhelm Middendorf. 
He was the youngest child, and the favorite, of 
a prosperous farmer of Brechten, WcvStphalia, 
who wished above all things to see his son a min- 
ister in the home parish. This son had, accord- 
dingiy, studied theology, and had taken his final 
examination at Easter, 1817. So far he had 
followed the desire of his parent ; then he made 
the break for Froebel and Griesheim. When 
the two were comrades in 1812, Froebel had filled 
him with a new ideal ; on the march and in the 
bivouac it rose before him as they conversed to- 
gether — the new ideal of education. He can 
no longer think of becoming a clergyman ; ut- 
terly impossible for him is su(^h a vo(!ation now; 
he must be a teacher. Theology is good in its 
way, but it is a little old, in fact medieval; the 
new priestly vocation is that of educator. Froe- 



FROEBEL AS FBINCIPAL. 153 

bel, we recollect, re-acted strongly against his 
clerical f ather ' s calling. So Micldendorf takes the 
great step, after no small battle, outer and inner, 
between theology and pedagogy, with victory 
for the latter, bemg inspired by Froebel with 
a new apostleship. 

As a dutiful son he must go to the paternal 
home and exi)]ain matters. Very trying was the 
ordeal; the okl father, after nuuiy vain a[)peals, 
exclaimed in the spirit of ancient Abraham : 
'' Heaven has alnindantly blessed us, for that 
blessing one child must be sacrificed to the 
Lord." Middendorf had an emotional nature, 
with a strong tinge of German sentiment ; also a 
poetic vein, with a tendency to break forth into 
rhymes. A most devoted, faithful, loj^al soul to 
what and to whom he had given his heart, and 
his heart he had oiven unreservedlv to Froebel. 
Middendorf had almost no neoative element in 
his character, an unf alien spirit, angelic, inno- 
cent as Eden before Satan's entrance; he is the 
one and the only one of Froebel' s friends who 
never shows the least swervino^ or estrano^ement. 
He never even declared his independence ; with 
a kind of ecstasy he sank away into the Froe- 
belian sea, renouncing individuality. 

Yet Middendorf had his gifts very different 
from Froebel. A strikingly beautiful person, 
winning all men at first glance, and i)articularly 
ail women; while dame Nature, in the matter of 



154 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL, 

o-iviiio- sood looks, had been a veritable step- 
mother to Froebel, quite as malicious as his real 
step-mother at Oberweissbach. Middendorf was 
eloquent, Froebel was not; Middendorf was a 
reconciUng character, Froebel often showed a 
repelling energy; modest the one, conceited the 
other ; but let us end this string of contrasted 
predicables, and say that the two friends were in 
many things exact counterparts, complementary 
of each other, and hence fitting together in one 
totality. Still, let it be remembered, Froebel was 
the genius, the creative spirit, the sun, while 
Middendorf was the moon, the beautiful and 
happy reflection of the central luminary. 

So it came to pass that Middendorf reached 
Griesheim on a fine April day a little while before 
Froebel' s birth-day, which was April 21st, and 
which was duly celebrated by the family and by 
the new-comer, who had brought along a younger 
brother of Langethal's as a pupil. Always after- 
wards there was a school festival on Froebel' s 
birth-day. 

Middendorf at first was not a teacher ; in fact, 
there was small need of him in that capacity 
during these early days. He took lessons from 
Froebel in pedagogy, and so was a pupil, too; 
with the pupils he was an elder companion, and 
rambled over the countrA^ while at home he ex- 
ercised his story -telling faculty, giving to the 
boys, among other things, some giant folk-lore. 



FROEBEL AS PEINCIPAL. 155 

which was suggested by the mountains and the 
names of phices in the neighborhood. 

But what means this new bustle at the parson- 
age? A chanoje must be made; Madam Christ- 
oph Froebel has lost her right of residence there 
throuo'h the death of her father. AVhatis to be 
done now? She is very enthusiastic for tlie new 
Idea, the school must not be given up, though it 
has to be transferred. A suitable site cannot be 
purchased at Griesheim ; after some looking 
about, the right place is found in the little village 
of Keilhau, some ten or twelve miles distant. 
Just the right place, says Frederick Froebel, 
who goes to the locality and inspects it ; just 
the right place for a boys' school ; see this fair 
Schaalbach Valley, these rugged hills for climb- 
ing, these pine woods, health -giving, inhabited 
by the squirrel, the fox, and even the deer, with 
any quantity of birds in the tree-tops, and any 
quantity of flowers springing up from the soil. 
Fun for the boys I see here everywhere, along 
with the study of nature ; play in unison with 
instruction I can hear singing out of the whole 
landscape. Just the place I want for my boys'- 
school ! 

But Froebel had no means ; we recollect that 
he reached Griesheim only by spending his last 
penny for some bread. Since that time cer- 
tainly not a great sum of money has flowed into 
the treasury, and father Middendorf was not in 



156 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

the mood to supply his son Wilhehu with much 
ready cash. The widow, however, is enthusi- 
astic, and has withal a strong will, very persist- 
ent in fact. She possesses a small property at 
Stadt-Ilm not far away, this she sells and with 
the proceeds buys the location at Keilhau, con- 
sisting of a farm and a peasant's hut, with an 
unfinished dwelling-house in a state of dilapida- 
tion, which had to be partly rebuilt before it 
could be used. Froebel and Middendorf with 
their boys move into this peasant's hut in June, 
1817, while the widow with her sons stays 
behind in Griesheim till the dwelling-house be 
completed. Froebel pulls off his coat and starts 
to work, and the others take a hand in clearing 
up the neglected |)remises ; he, being a carpenter 
and architect, does not need to spend any money 
for labor, and, besides, he has no money. 

Thus the school has found its home, Avhich it 
will never leave. Madam Christoph Froebel has 
furnished the means, little enough, yet her all^ 
Frederick Froebel takes her property and uses 
it, seeming to regard what is hers as his own. 
And she has given it without protest or stint, in 
deep devotion to the man and his work, keeping 
that promise of his alive in her heart, that he 
would ' ' take the i)lace of father to her orphaned 
children." But what lies in Froebel's mind 
concerning tliis thread of his life which the 
Fates are covertly spinning? No voice of his 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 157 

has reached us, Ave can only wait till Time speaks 
forth the secret in the event. 



II. 

Early Keilhau. 

In about two months the dwellino-house was 
read}^ so that the moving could take place. Ac- 
cordinofly in August, 1817, Madam Christoph 
Froebel packs up her household goods and makes 
the change from Griesheim to Keilhau. The 
two ao'ed ladies, orrandmother and o-randaunt, 2:0 
along, doubtless with some premonitions about 
leaving the old spot, also about this questionable 
new departure in educating boys, for this v. as 
not the way in their youth. A German moving 
it was, with household cows arPd pigs and poultry 
following the high-piled wagon, nor were the 
geese, " the feathered cattle," left behind, the 
rich source of the luxurious feather-bed as well 
as of that blessed dish, when fat and rightly 
roasted, called Gdnsepfeffer. 

One of the students who was there has left us 
a description of Keilhau at that time. About 100 
inhabitants and 20 houses, some of which were 
three hundred years old ; the church had a fine 
tower but descended into the earth like a cellar 
or catacomb. On the main highway of the vil- 
lage was the fountain, in whose pools along the 
streets sported in season lizards and salamanders. 



158 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

As was done 500 years ago, the magistrate used 
a notched stick to tell off the fees or tithes due 
from the people, and announced verbally any 
new order of the government, as if printing 
existed not. The watchman armed Avith his 
medieval hellebard marched daily through the 
village. The same blue coat for Sunday de- 
scended from father to son, and the daughter 
wore the same fine toggery that had decked the 
mother as bride. The food was chiefly fruit and 
grain, their drink the crystal-pure water of the 
village fountain. The peasants took their prod- 
ucts to the market at Rudolstadt; there they 
would indulge in the luxury of a glass of beer, or 
a herring, or a piece of sausage. 

Such was the primitive spot in which Froebel 
began reforming the world, a spot somewhat like 
in innocence to that original Paradise in which 
Adam made his start. Froebel flees from the 
city, almost from civilization, and returns to 
Eden in order to reproduce the new man by edu- 
cation, so great is his faith in his Idea. He will 
try to keep out the Serpent by his method, since 
every other way has failed, even that of the Lord 
through divine prohibition. At least one may 
say that here in Keilhau is still to be seen a con- 
siderable remnant of the Middle Ages in custom, 
in costume, in social order, in spirit and in back- 
wardness. 

And now let us consider the neglected premises 



FROEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. 159 

to have been put in order, the new school-house 
to have been erected, everybody fairly settled, 
and the boys to be at work or rather at play, for 
this wi\s their chief business, the happy fellows! 
And sure enough, they were at play with some 
new building blocks which Froebel had just given 
them, when lo ! approaching in the distance is 
the tall, dignified, imposing figure of a gentleman, 
yet showing a kindly look in his face as he draws 
nearer to the boys who have stopped their play for 
a good gaze. Is it a medieval knight haunting this 
medieval spot, the genius of the place, as it were? 
Not exactly, yet somewhat so. He is soon recog- 
nized by both Froebel and Middendorf , who rush 
to embrace him in the most cordial welcome, while 
the astonished boys gather around and stand, 
except one little fellow who also makes a plunge 
for the stranger and calls him " my brother." 
Who is it? Heinrich Langethal, friend and com- 
rade of Froebel and Middendorf in the War of 
Liberation. 

So on a September day, 1817, the third j^erson 
of this trinity of friends appears at Keilhau. But 
alas! he does not intend to remain, and further- 
more his plan is to take his 3 oung brother away. 
Langethal has studied theology and passed a 
brilliant examination ; but he has refused a cleri- 
cal position and accepted that of a tutor in a 
noble family of Silesia. Just now he is visiting 
his people at Erfurt, not far away, and has come 



160 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

over to see his old friends, as well as to remove 
his brother, who is to go with him to his new 
place. Not a joyful piece of news to Keilhau ; 
still the parting is not yet, as he proposes to stay 
a few days, and to look around, and to take 
a lesson or two in Froebel's pedagogy, of which 
he had imbibed a good deal in former days on 
the march and in camp. 

This was an opportunity which Froebel was not 
slow to improve ; he knew he must have just 
this man to round out his work. For Lansrethal 
possessed certain necessary qualities which Froe- 
bel and Middendqrf both lacked; he was the 
best teacher of the three, especially for the more 
advanced pupils ; he possessed a more thorough 
classical training than either of his friends, had 
a more dignified bearing, commanded a loftier 
respect from those wild boys — and always get- 
ting a little wilder — with whom Froebel and 
Middendorf stood more on the footing of jolly 
equals. Langethars strong point was dignity of 
character — a quality quite lacking in that bois- 
terous Keilhau hurly-burly of liberty, eqal- 
ity, and fraternity, Avhich took up every- 
body, large and little, in its embrace, not 
omitting the two old ladies who had a stand- 
ing feud with those impertinent youngsters, 
whose naughtiness Froebel seemed rather to en- 
joy. Yes, Langethal is needed there with his 
element of character, and nobody knows it better 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 161 

than Froebel himself, who besieges his friend in 
long walks and talks, till the latter capitulates. 
The tutorship in Silesia is canceled, theology is 
again relegated to a back seat, as in the case of 
Middendorf, and Heinrich Langethal takes an 
inner vow of consecration to the New Idea. 
Great rejoicing at Keilhau over this triumph, and 
well there may be. (23) 

In this decision another influence was at work, 
very subtle, unmentioned probably, yet shaping 
the man's career. Langethal had a chivalrous, 
medieval strain in his nature ; a touch of knight- 
errantry hi}" in him, and he loved the romance of 
chivalry. Of a sudden he found himself set 
down in a villas^e of the Middle Aoes, with its 
distant castle, its church, nearly all spire, its 
quaint people. The spirit of Keilhau, voicing 
that olden time, appealed to him powerfulh^ ; 
here is where he desired to live. Already we 
have spoken of the Romantic School and its in- 
fluence upon Froebel and his work, as well as 
upon Middendorf. But Langethal was the 
greatest Romanticist of the lot. So the genius 
of the place whispered to his kindred genius and 
persuaded him with its secret promptings, uniting 
its spirit power to the words of Froebel, and 
making them irresistible. 

In his native town, Erfurt, Langethal was a 
man of influence, which showed itself in the 
welcome fact that five pupils came thence to 

11 



162 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

Keilhau in the course of this and the succeeding 
year. Thus the school kept growing, and more 
buikiings were needed. Still, poverty held its 
bony gri}) upon the work and strangled many an 
enterprising scheme of improvement. 

Lano^ethal, havins^ entered the circle of in- 
structors, soon won the very souls of the boys. 
His tramps with them over the mountains ex- 
tended beyond anything they had ever done of 
the kind with Froebel and Middendorf . At the 
same time he opened to them a new world of 
the imagination, just his own in fact. They 
read with him The Magic Ring, a romance of 
the Middle Ages ; he sang and declaimed for 
them with his full sonorous voice the bal- 
lads of Schiller, especially those having the 
color and background of chivalry, as the Diver or 
the Battle with the Dragon, or best of all, because 
shortest and most Ywid, Der Han dschiih ; then he 
would strike up the patriotic war-songs of the 
Lutzow Corps, when Middendorf would fall in 
with his fine tenor voice, and Froebel too could 
be heard varying the strain with his peculiar nasal 
snarling tone, which he could not suppress when 
he sang, and giving to the whole a kind of a 
hurdy-gurdy undertone. 

But no undue familiarities with Langethal, my 
boys; he was always dignified, stately, sonorous, 
commandino^ ; he was their veritable knight Teu- 
tonic, coming down from the old German emper- 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 163 

ors, of whose tournaments and expeditions they 
read in their history. Under his guidance they 
built castles on the mountains out of rock : they 
made helmets, shields, coats of mail out of 
papier mache ; javelins, swords, arrows they cut 
out of wood. The old medieval world of German 
knighthood they reproduced, and actually carried 
out the scheme of Eomanticism in their play. 
Thus the boys underwent a grand transformation 
within and without, they had high ideals, and 
lived in a realm where they could build lofty air- 
castles on the dizziest heights of dreamland. 
And furthermore let the fact be noted ; they, as 
hi£:h-toned knig^hts and full of chivalrous feeling: 
toward the ladies, now disdained their former 
vulgar sport of teasing the two old women, who 
began at last to have a little peace in this ideal 
world of knio'hthood. 

Thus the Keilhau school slips along through 
the cold season till the spring of 1818, amid 
much enthusiasm and many privations. The 
boys were having a glorious time, even if the 
bread was dry and cracked with age, and the but- 
ter rancid. The stove would smoke in the school- 
room, but what of that? No coffee was allowed, 
no tea, no chocolate, none of joxxv foreign 
decoctions ; pure German Avater from Keilhau 
fountain is the only patriotic drink. Somewhat 
more dubious the matter looked when bread itself 
seemed on the point of giving out, with no 



164 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

money in the till, and with little grain in the land, 
and that very dear. This period, in fact, is still 
known in Germany as the years of famine. The 
whole set, Froebel, Middendorf, Langethal, the 
women and the boys, at one time seemed to have 
become bankrupt together, since they could not 
rake up enough money to buy their food, as 
unpretentious as this was. 

At such a conjuncture Madam Christoph Froe- 
bel stepped to the front, strong-willed and devoted 
to the cause. She had a lot of silverware, chiefly 
heirlooms coming down from the past; these 
had value, nay, could be melted and turned into 
shining metal with purchasing power. No senti- 
mental tears for those sacred relics ; she would 
draw them forth from their hiding-place, piece 
by piece — she did so several times, accord- 
ing to report — and fling them into jaws of the 
monster Hunger, thereby appeasing him, and 
rescuing the Keilhau band from his maw. Cer- 
tainly it looks as if the community had been 
scattered to the winds but for such action on her 
part. So much she has done for the cause and 
for the man who has promised to '' take the 
place of father to your orphaned children." 

Meanwhile the warm winds of spring have 
begun to pipe in the vale of Schaale, and vege- 
tation is appearing everywhere in response, 
bringing berries and other edibles to the hungry. 
Stern poverty has relaxed her grip, and the boys 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 165 

are roaming the fields and mountains, for in- 
struction of course, but not neglecting to take 
their fill of wild strawberries which abound in 
those parts. But listen! amid the soft kisses of 
the breeze and the merry song of the birds in 
the merrv month of May, is mingled a discordant 
note, getting louder and louder to downright 
anger and separation. What is the matter? 

In June, 1818, Madam Christoph Froebel is 
again packing her household goods, and is pre- 
paring to leave Keilhau. Moreover she threat- 
ens to sell the farm and appurtenances, which 
are her property, to the highest bidder. School 
and all will have to go, as Froebel has no money, 
nor has Middendorf , nor has Langethal. What 
is to be done with the woman, strong-willed, 
strong-tongued, yea, strong-boned, now roused 
to a high pitch of indignation? At last she is 
appeased to the extent of selling out to Froebel 
at a high price, taking his promises to pay, and 
leaving her boys still at his school. Then, with 
a malediction in her heart upon the man who said 
he would take the place of father to her orphaned 
children, she quits Keilhau and moves to another 
town not very far off called Volkstadt, from 
which for years hence she will look out upon the 
school and its principal with a deep sense of 
wrongs possessing almost the fabled power of 
the Evil Eye. 

What is the cause of the tempest? A certain 



166 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

disquieting rumor has been going the rounds of 
the viUage, and she has heard it with great per- 
turbation ; in consequence of it, she has had an 
interview with Froebel, and he has acknowledged 
to her that he is going to marry another woman. 
Good Heavens ! Who is it? 

III. 

Froebel's Marriage, 

Already the reader has seen the form of Hen- 
rietta Wilhelmine Hoffmeister flitting momen- 
tarily across Froebel's path of life when he was 
in the Mineralogical Museum at Berlin. Into his 
solitary stalactite chamber of crystals she came 
one day, with an illumination never forgotten by 
him ; he spoke to her and began conversing about 
his Idea, into which she entered with marvelous 
sympathy and appreciation. Only this one time, 
seemingly, did she appear to him, but that was 
enough. Moreover she and her family were well 
known to both Middendorf and Langethal, Avho, 
w^hile they were students at Berlin, visited at her 
home, and undoubtedly they had spoken to her 
in praise of Froebel, the man of great ideas in 
education. It is probable that she, stimulated by 
their description and by a woman's curiosity, 
peeped into the museum one day just to catch a 
glimpse of the strange genius at work in his 
crystal-world. But in this look the Fates were 
spinning her thread of life. 



1 



FBOEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. 167 

She was the daughter of a Prussian Councillor 
of War and had been reared in comfort, if not 
in luxury. A highly cultivated woman, pupil of 
Fichte and Schleiermacher, she shared deeply in 
the intellectual life of the Capital and its Univer- 
sity. Born at Berlin, Sept. 20th, 1780, she was 
now 38 years old, no longer young, in fact two 
years older than Froebel himself. Trying experi- 
ences of life she had passed through, but had kept 
her enthusiasm ; a Romanticist she was by nature 
and still more by education, participating strongly 
in the spiritual movement of the Romantic 
School, which made such a stir at Berlin during 
the early years of the Nineteenth Century. Yet 
her manner Avas without all pretense, very amiable, 
without the least appearance of the strong- 
minded, self -exploiting blue-stocking, horror of 
horrors to the German man and to some others 
not German. 

There is no doubt that Froebel had a good 
'opinion of himself, but it must have taken con- 
siderable nudging to bring him to the point of 
asking this refined and high-bred lady to leave 
her comfortable home and the elegant society of 
a great city, and to share the primitive life at 
Keilhau, sometimes' sinking down to starvation 
line. But Middendorf, and, as we think, Lan- 
gethal especially, kept nudging, nudging: she is 
the lady to preside over your grand destiny, and 
that of your school ; Frau Christoph yonder is a 



168 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. . 

good woman in her way, excellent at the wash- 
tub and house-cleaning, but she has peasant man- 
ners and reads only newspapers. Not a suitable 
helpmeet for you and for your future, my dear 
friend; then how can we, graduates of the Uni- 
versity, stay here with that woman giving tone 
to our domestic life? Send the decisive letter at 
once to Berlin or let us send it for you. 

At any rate the letter was sent, and the matter 
was debated in the family Hoffmeister; the old 
Councillor was inclined to veto the scheme, upon 
which the daughter looked with favor from the 
start. It appealed to her romantic character 
thus to flee from civilized life back to nature, 
from city to country, from present to past, from 
real 'to ideal, and specially from the dreary prose 
of to-day to the fair poetic world of chivalry. 
She knew that gallant specimen of knighthood, 
young Heinrich Langethal, who had doubtless 
informed her or a certain young lady of her 
household, concerning what was going on at 
Keilhau. So the father yields, though he 
would gladly have kept his daughter to comfort 
his old age, which was now upon him. Accord- 
ingly a letter is sent to Frederick Froebel which 
in a few weeks brings him from Keilhau to 
Berlin, where on the 20th of September, 1818, 
her birthdav, he weds Henriette Wilhelmine 
Klepper, born Hoffmeister, and after due fes- 
tivity, brings her home in a kind of triumph. 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 169 

A most daring stroke on the part of Froebel, 
indeed an act of sublime audacity when we con- 
sider his finances, his prospects and the man 
himself. Yet a highly successful stroke thus to 
win a fair lady ; but not many men will have the 
courage to imitate it in these days. At any rate 
the Keilhau knisfhts have now a hioh-born lady 
to preside in their castle, if such may be called 
the rambling group of wooden buildings, partly 
unfinished still, in which is the abode of the New 
Idea. 

We must also record the fact, not without sis:- 
nificance, that Froebel' s wife has an adopted 
daughter, Ernestine Crispine, now grown, whom 
she has brought with her to Keilhau, and who 
will play her part in its drama. Just at present 
we can merely say that in due time hereafter she 
will be married to knis^htlv Heinrich Lano^ethal, 
who has often seen her at Berlin while a student 
there,' and who has been so active in bringing 
about her mother's removal to Keilhau, well 
knowing (one may conjecture) that she would 
not be left behind. Thus it would appear that 
Lano^ethal's advice in this matter mio^ht not have 
been wholly disinterested, and that in his case 
too the Love-God was at work, though in secret, 
weaving an invisible web of gossamer around two 
hearts till they can no longer tear away from 
each other. 

Let us imagine the reception over, and the new 



170 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

mistress installed in her pLice and setting things 
to rio-hts after her own fashion. Bless me, what 
a disillusion ! The boys find out at once that 
they are no longer the center, but all begins to 
circle round the new luminary. She has her 
own table, which is not theirs, and the teachers 
assemble around her table now, not theirs, as 
they did before. " The Berlin aunt " is already 
unpopular, introducing her high-toned ways into 
the youthful democracy at Keilhau. Tlien what 
is this we see on a fair summer's day? Horror 
of horrors ! A table is brought out, and with 
five chairs is placed upon our turning-ground, 
which our own hands have made with the spade 
and shovel, and which we have dedicated to gen- 
uine old-German customs. Worse and worse! 
Tea and coffee, those vile, foreign, un-German 
decoctions, are served in broad daylight, and 
three of the chairs are occupied by our three 
teacliers, who along with the two Berlin ladies 
are drinking the very beverage which they have 
forbidden to us and repudiated as unpatriotic and 
unhealthy at least a hundred times. A great 
shock it was to the boys; in fact a con- 
spiracy arose among them, and a tablet was set 
up by them at the entrance with the inscription : 
Our turning-place desecrated by a coffee-house. 
It looks as if they had the best of the argument 
in this matter, and it is said that " the Berlin 
aunt" did not have many such gatherings after- 



FBOEBEL AS FBINCIPAL, 171 

wards. Thus that darling amusement of the 
German woman, the afternoon KaffeeTclatsch , 
which she loves next to her husband, carrvino^ it 
with her around the globe wherever she may 
settle, sets a decided set-back at the hands of the 
Keilhau boys, the patriotic youngsters. 

But the school passes out of its state of 
learned bachelorhood, and gets married in the 
person of its principal. Too much of the male 
and the monk here for the good of the youth ; 
a domestic thread must be woven into their lives 
even by education ; this masculine fraternity of 
men and boys is one-sided, let us correct it by 
transforming the whole school into a family 
with a woman at the center — a wife refined, 
motherly, devoted to the cause. The domestic 
side of Keilhau now begins, and will continue to 
unfold Avith the years. 

The pinch of poverty is still felt but the work 
goes bravely on. More and more does it appear, 
however, that Froebel is a poor administrator, 
and, what is worse, will take no advice. We 
also hear now of a little disappointment of his : 
he expected a marriage portion, but it never 
came to hand. Also it begins to be perceived 
that the new ]Madam Froebel is not a good man- 
ager for the Keilhau household, that is, she is not 
economical. What else indeed could be expected 
from her previous affluent way of living? Under 
such circumstances the former thrifty house- 



172 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

keeper, Madam Christoph Froebel, rises to 
memoiy. 

She is yonder at Volkstadt, brooding over her 
lot with the sense of the deepest injury, recall- 
ing what she deems the broken promise of 
Frederick Froebel, and invoking, it may be 
said, the Furies of violated Love to avenge 
her wrong. Is she justified in her impreca- 
tions upon him and all the Keilhau teachers 
alono' with the hated Berlin woman who has 
taken her place? If there be an Ethical 
Order in this Universe — and there is — 
now must the Unseen Powers, its guardians and 
defenders, step out into the arena of this life 
of Froebel, and henceforth take a hand in its 
course, wreaking upon him and all the partici- 
pants in this wrong done to an innocent woman, 
the retribution of their deed. All this, provided 
that she is right in thinkino^ that the sacred 
promise of Love had been scorned and trampled 
underfoot by Froebel and his advisers in the 
matter of his present marriage. Recollect, we 
B'tiy ^ provided that, for we emphaticalW feel and 
affirm it to be not in our sphere to judge the case 
but simply to record the judgment of the Unseen 
Justiciary, when it has uttered itself in the event. 

Froebel and his friends appear before the 
World's Tribunal, declarino^ that he never '' in 
the remotest deo:ree " had in mind the meanino^ 
which his deceased brother's widow put into his 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 173 

words : "I shall take the place of father to your 
orphaned children." Let the statement stand as 
the plea on his side ; but there is another side 
which must now be heard in the interest of an 
impartial decision and in explanation of many 
occurrences hereafter. (24) 

IV. 

The Froebel Boys and their Mother. 

In the Keilhau school were five boys by the 
name of Froebel. Two were sons of Christian 
Froebel, and, though educated by their uncle, 
were of small importance in his career ; so they 
may be at once dismissed. Far greater was the 
influence of the three sons of Christoph Froebel 
upon their uncle's life; they stream into it dur- 
ing its entire course to the very last, even until 
his death, in which one of them may be said to 
have been remotely involved, though not, of 
course, guiltily. Two of these sons, Julius and 
Carl, became famous writers, and both have 
told their story of early Keilhau. Particularly 
has Julius Froebel, in his Autobiography called by 
him Ein Lehenslauf^ given a full account of his 
mother and his uncle at Keilhau and elsewhere. 
These sons of Christoph Froebel, being of such 
importance, we shall designate specially as the 
Froebel boys. 



174 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

The picture of the mother which eTulius Froe- 
bel gives us permits us to see the general out- 
lines of her character. He calls her a decided 
realist; she loved disputation, was fond of poli- 
tics, and was a zealous reader of newspapers till 
her eightieth year, the time of her death. In 
religion she was a rationalist, as was her husband, 
and had many a discussion with her father, who 
was a pietist. She would chat with the peas- 
ants, and evidently felt herself at home among 
them ; she leaned toward democracy and its 
equalizing tendency which sprang of the French 
Revolution. She had a strons: will which often 
led her into acts of tyranny in the family. With 
her imperious temper was coupled a bony, robust, 
rather tall body, capable of any amount of work 
and of privation. Her son declares that one of 
her marked traits was a pedantic cleanliness, for 
which she required the water of the entire river 
Ilm, which fortunately flowed before her door. 
He must have remembered her remorseless scrub- 
bing of him when a boy, and there was needed 
all her fierce washing-power to keep things clean 
in that school of muddy shoes. A strong but rude 
character she shows, strong in will, in tongue, in 
muscle ; curious for what is new and enthusiastic 
for reform and devoted to liberty, provided that 
it did not interfere with her authority. 

Such a realistic woman, as the center of the 
school home, was not relished by those University 



FBOEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. 175 

men who were to be the future instructors. Par- 
ticularly Langethal must have felt the discord 
with his ideal romantic tendency. Such was the 
inner conflict fermentino^ in Keilhau durino^ the 
scholastic year of 1817-8, and ending in the 
marriage of Froebel to a woman of quite the op- 
posite character. 

When he comes to mention his mother's depart- 
ure from Keilhau, Julius Froebel very naturally 
does not give the reason assigned by his uncle's 
friends. He could not speak of his mother's 
disappointed love, but he brings forward other 
grounds for the step, attributing it to his uncle's 
bad management and blind self-confidence which 
refused all advice. The climax was reached when 
the latter sent the seed-corn to the mill to be 
ground into flour for bread which was needed 
for the school. Then, says Julius, the widow 
foreseeing economic ruin called a halt, sold out, 
and quit the school, for which she had originally 
bought the place and endured so many privations. 
All this may have been true, but the other reason 
was also true, and indeed the real reason. Still 
the widow took Frederick Froebel' s promises to 
pay, though he had already broken another and 
deeper promise. But even these promises to pay 
were remorsely disregarded, and their failure re- 
duced her and her daughter to absolute penury, 
to great suffering, and finally to the verge of 
starvation. 



176 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

On this point Julius Froebel bears witness 
from wliJit he saw and knew personally. We 
shall translate directly from his narrative: " Vis- 
iting my mother at Volkstadt during the severe 
cold of winter, I found her lying very ill of a 
fever, without money and without fuel, in a 
small room of a peasant's hut. When I returned 
to Keilhau, I asked my uncle Frederick Froebel 
to pay some of the debt due my mother, but 
with hard words he refused the payment. Hith- 
erto I had been in a kind of conflict between my 
love for my mother and my veneration for my 
uncle and teacher. But now I began to hate the 
man, and it was natural for me to think of leav- 
ing Keilhau. My two brothers and myself made 
during those winter evenings some toys which we 
sold to our wealthier fellow-pupils; our sister 
earned a few dollars with her needle ; thus by 
selling the products of our small industry we 
succeeded in meetinof the immediate wants of our 
mother's household." (See Ein Lehenslaufl. 
s. 38.) 

Such is the arraignment of Frederick Froebel 
by his own nephew, citing him in printed accusa- 
tion before the Tribunal of the Ages, which has 
at last to render decision. Both the accused and 
the accuser have passed beyond to their own final 
account over the border, but in a kind of spectral 
attitude they still tarry here before us, glaring 
at each other with all the venom of a blood-feud 



FltOEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. Ill 

among kindred. So we litive to call up these 
hostile ghosts just here in the course of this biog- 
raphy and meet them and look into their faces, 
for we cannot turn aside from them in duty to 
our theme. 

As already said, Froebel and his friends de- 
clare that the widow had no right to think of 
marriage when he t^ld her that he would be a 
father to her orphaned children. Let it be 
granted that she was too ready to see a deeper 
meanino: in Froebel' s words than their author 
intended. But did he not know that she thus 
interpreted him? Could he have remained two 
years in intimate daily intercourse with her and 
not have perceived that? And perceiving it, 
ought he not in justice to have disabused her 
mind, if he intended no such thing from the 
start? Such are the questions that will come 
before the Tribunal in seeking to adjudicate this 
matter accordino; to the law of eternal rio^ht. 

In fact a still deeper question rises at this 
point. If Froebel from the start never intended 
any such relation, but let her be deceived, play- 
ins: on her feelinos and her enthusiasm for his 
cause, and using her property as if it were his 
own, through her infatuation, then shall we not 
have to say that his conduct is of a still darker 
dye? Kather let us believe that he intended 
quite what she did in the beginning; certainly 
we cannot think him to have intended just the 

1^ 



178 . THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

opposite and have deceived her so long in cold 
deliberation. Such a view we shall throw out of 
court on the spot. But we ma}^ consider that 
he was persuaded by Middendorf and specially 
by Langethal that he could never realize that 
Idea of his with such a wife or perchance such 
a woman, in his educational home. 

Herewith we reach down to Froebel's deepest 
principle of action : he was possessed with an 
Idea, which pulsed through every throb of his 
heart, and which determined every deed of his, 
yea, every motive and feeling. To the Idea he 
stood ready to sacrifice all human relations, even 
the tenderest, even Love itself. At one fling he 
could toss his own kindred to be devoured by 
his Idea, beo^innino^ with himself. This on one 
side makes him the Hero, but on the other side 
brings down upon him the tragic penalty of be- 
ing a Hero. For these human relations, too, 
have their validity, aye, their right in this world, 
and so their violation will not fail to call up the 
avenger, who will scourge their violator and hunt 
him into the very dust in return for his deed, 
even though this be done in the pursuit of a lofty 
ideal. 

But again we must strongly affirm that we are 
not the judge of Frederick Froebel ; to hold court 
over him lies not in the sphere of our jurisdiction. 
Not to judge, but to record judgment when it has 
been delivered in the events of life is our impar- 



1 



FBOEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. 179 

tial biographic function. And we must wait and 
see what events the Powers, by way of disciphne 
and penalty, will interweave into this career of 
Froebel, before the real meaning of his deed and 
of his character will move into the light of day. 

Still in taking a revievr of the case up to the 
present, so much may be stated : when we hear 
Julius Froebel utter those words with a glow of 
vengeful intensity Avhich still burns the eye that 
reads, I began to hate Mm, in a passage which he 
revised and printed, if he did not write, full sev- 
enty years after the occurrence which it describes, 
he being at that time eighty-four years old, and 
all the parties concerned having been laid long 
since in their graves — then we know the Furies 
of Hate to have been born in the hearts of these 
Froebel boys, taking up the cause of their in- 
jured mother and vowing eternal revenge upon 
their uncle, who in his turn will charge them 
with ingratitude, with betraying his cause to his 
enemies and spreadhig their insidious lies, to the 
ruin of his school at Keilhau. 

Unquestionably the Furies of the Family are 
now born, born of the deed of the uncle, and 
will pla\ their part, often hidden till it bursts into 
sudden consuming tire, in the coming history. 
Born they are, and now are at work, and will not 
stop working while a spark of life lasts in a sin- 
gle heart of these participants. (25) 



180 



Tllk: LIFE OF FROEBEL. 



V. 

The Froebel Girls and Their Father. 

After the marriage of Froebel, the economical 
side of the school did not improve — how could 
it? The revenues were not large, the financial 
administration of both husband and wife was 
wasteful, at least not adjusted to the income, and 
even the old specter Hunger at times showed his 
face threateningly in the distance. But the in- 
struction went forward with success, the teachers 
were devoted to the Idea, and heavenly Hope took 
the greatest deli^^ht in encirclino^ with her rain- 
bows the gaunt figure and pinched features of 
pallid Poverty. 

Still the crisis could not be put off forever. It 
seemed on the point of culminating when a cer- 
tain important lease expired in the year 1820, and 
Froebel was in dans^er of beintr turned out of 
doors. But here again Providence, his great 
ally, came to his assistance just at the decisive 
moment. His brother Christian Froebel, a pros- 
perous manufacturer living at Osterode in the 
Harz, who has two boys at the school resolves to 
move his whole family to Keilhau, and to devote 
himself and his fortune to furtherinoj Frederick's 
enterprise. He has wealth, has business experi- 
ence, and has a wife who is an excellent house- 
hold manager ; surely they are just the people 
most needed now at Keilhau. 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 181 

But the chief fact in this occurrence is that 
Christian Froebel has three daughters, two of 
them young hidies, who now (1820) enter the 
Keilhau circle. Not however as pupils; their 
education is apparently not thought of in this 
all-absorbinij boys'-school. Not one word about 
the training of girls in this new educational 
scheme, thouah Froebel has four nieces, sisters 
of the live nephews, and also human souls : three 
are these dau2:hters of Christian, and one the 
daughter of Christoph, In the most striking 
manner they are simply left out of the account. 
But later in life Froebel will change, he will 
recognize the place of woman in education above 
all other men of his time, especially in the edu- 
cation of the child ; young ladies like these nieces 
of his he will train to a new vocation, that of 
kindergardners, who will become the great prom- 
ulgators and apostles of his Idea. But no hint 
of any such thought is in his head now. 

Still these three Froebel girls, daughters of 
Christian, will hold their own in the home, and 
will make themselves a most important factor in 
Froebel' s career, and in the future history of 
Keilhau. The other niece, daughter of Chris- 
toph, goes with her mother to Volkstadt and 
vanishes out of the sight of this biography. 

The three Froebel girls, therefore, are the sis- 
ters who come with father and mother from 
Osterode and settle at Keilhau in the year 1820. 



182 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Two of them are young ladies, Albertine, aged 
nineteen, andEmilie, aged sixteen; then there is 
little Elise, six years old. These are the women, 
who with their mother will in time form the 
domestic foundation of Keilhau, its bed-rock, 
which will outlast Froebel himself, and which he 
will not be able to overturn or shake asunder in 
all the ups and downs of his volcanic tossings, 
though he will give it many a wrench. 

Now these two young ladies had, before 1820, 
become extremely interested in Keilhau, had heard 
much from their brothers, when the latter w^ould 
come home on a visit during the holidays, about 
the instructors, those splendid young men from 
the University. In fact it is recorded that one 
of these young ladies came in person to Keilhau 
to see her brothers and cousins, and to be present 
at the happy Christmas festivities, so grandly 
celebrated by pupils and teachers. And it stands 
to reason that both the young ladies should pay 
more than one visit to Keilhau during the two 
years preceding 1820, and have a pleasant time 
with brothers and cousins and uncle and aunt, 
and take a curious glance at those wonderful in- 
structors, highly educated young men from Ber- 
lin University, the handsome Middendorf and the 
knightly Langethal. 

And in order that we may catch up all the 
threads of Fate, near and remote, which the Love- 
God is spinning in these days, we should note 



FEOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 183 

that the little companion of Elise Froebel at 
Osterocle is a little girl five years old by the name 
of Louise Levin, who many years after this time 
will weave herself into Froebel' s life in the most 
marvelous manner, dipping him afresh in the 
fountain of Love ^vhen an old man, and thereby 
renewing and rejuvenating him for the last great 
creative period of his career. This little girl has 
already received from her play-mate wonderful 
pretty trinkets made by the boys at Keilhau, and 
has often heard the name of Frederick Froebel, 
the great man there, who has become to her 
child-soul a kind of far-off divine ideal, which 
she will nourish solitary in her heart for a quarter 
of a century , till she too one day passes from 
Osterode to Keilhau — in 1845 it was — and be- 
holds the incarnation of her dreams. And 
then — but the rest of the story must be told 
later, in its proper place. 

So it appears, when the institute at Keilhau 
was in the gravest financial distress, buildings 
unfinished, debts unpaid, lease expiring, that all 
these troubles, the dark side of the idyllic pic- 
ture, were brought to brother Christian at Oster- 
ode, who thereupon made up his mind to quit 
business and to devote himself to the new Idea. 
An heroic act, most unusual for a hard-headed 
man of affairs, such as he was ; but having taken 
the resolution, he remained steadfast to the 
cause till his dying day in spite of many dis- 



184 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

couragements. The Baroness von Marenholtz- 
Biilow, when she vivsited Keilhau a generation 
Liter (in 1853), found him still alive and at 
work upon a household task, though over 
eighty years old. 

The voung ladies, the daughters, seconded 
the plan with all their hearts — so, at least, we 
have the right to imagine; in fact, they had 
already besieged Papa to move to Keilhau, in 
all probability, not for the purpose of getting 
an education, but with another design, carefully 
concealed, yet dear to the heart of the German 
girl, and other girls. And wonderful will be 
their success, as the following record shows. 
Albertine, the eldest, will win Wilhelm Midden- 
dorf , on the whole the most desirable man of 
the lot; Emilie Avill marry Barop, the talented 
successor of Froebel as principal at Keilhau. 
Elise, the youngest, after the failure of her first 
engagement with Robert Kohl, the musical 
theologian, will finally wed Dr. Siegfried Schaff- 
ner, also an instructor at Keilhau, as late as 1850. 
Well done for the Froebel o^irls ! one has to ex- 
claim, in admiration, overcanopying for so many 
years that school with a domestic heaven. 

Accordingly, Christian Froebel with his family 
settles in his new home and begins operations in 
the year 1820. At once the debts are paid, the 
unfinished buildings are completed, and the finan- 
cial strain generally is brought to an end. But 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 185 

the chief change is that the domestic element is 
strengthened enormously by the advent of the new 
family, in fact, the permanent foundation of the 
school-home is now laid for the first time, by a 
total family consisting of father and mother, sons 
and daughters. 

Still there will be one disappointment ; Chris- 
tian Froebel soon finds that he has made one 
mistake in his unselfishness. He has unre- 
servedly given his Avealth into the hands of his 
brother Frederick, and has retained for himself 
no administrative control even of the property 
which his own money has bought, thinking ap- 
parently to assist his brother by his advice alone. 
But he soon discovers that brother Frederick 
will listen to no advice and resents any sugges- 
tion as an offense to his authority, or an insult 
to his capacity. On this side of his character 
he is developing a blind self-confidence little 
short of a belief in his own infallibility. He is 
fast reaching that state of mind which the ancient 
Greeks called insolence toward the Gods, and 
which an avenoing Nemesis leveled sooner or 
later to the earth. Even those who most firmly 
believed in the greatness of his Idea, saw the 
folly of his administration and presaged a day of 
reckonino'. 

But the time of prosperity had set in, the 
school kept increasing its attendance from year 
to year, the revenue Avas enough to \n\y all ob- 



186 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

ligations. In 1821 the number of pupils rose to 
twenty, which called for new buildings. The 
next year fourteen were added,. and in 1824 six- 
teen more came, and in the two following years 
the number reached sixty which was the high- 
est point. So w^e have now before us Keilhau 
in its bloom, which we shall look at more fully. 
(26) 

VI. 

The Rise of Keilhau. 

With the comino; of Christian Froebel and 
family, fortune smiles on Keilhau for six years 
(1820-6). The school has passed from being 
purely a male affair, a brotherhood of teachers 
and pupils, to being a family, or a union of fam- 
ilies, which is now the domestic substrate of the 
school. We may call it on this side the transi- 
tion from monastic to domestic Keilhau. Thus 
the Family has become the emphatic institution 
in the school ; of the other social institutions of 
man, the Church is present, but certainly not 
prominent; the Economic Order lies in the dis- 
tance ; the State as then established hardly exists 
for the Keilhau community, or is scouted more 
than acknowledged. 

This brings us to the great social fact which 
gave origin to the school. It sprang from a 
mighty spiritual movement of the time, which 
had many other manifestations, one of which 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 187 

was Romanticism. Already we have repeatedly 
connected Keilhau, its founders and its teachers, 
with the Eomantic movement of Germany, whose 
essence was a turning back of culture to its 
fountain heads in former ages on account of a 
deep dissatisfaction with the present. We might 
name it in general, a flight from the Real to the 
Ideal. This is the deepest dualism of the Teu- 
tonic soul ; the actual world is such a miserable 
slough of despond, that the German flees from 
it and lives in an inner world of his own makinof. 
Hence he is supremely the idealist of Europe or 
has been so, turning to thought and speculation, 
while the Anglo-Saxon turns to will and realiza- 
tion. 

Keilhau was, then, in many respects a flight. 
First of all it was a flight back to nature ®ut of 
the complex life of civilization, a flight from city 
to country. Hence the prodigious stress upon 
living in harmony with nature, hence the rambles 
over the mountains, through wide stretches of 
country,' the pupils often avoiding a city like a 
place of pestilence. Once a crowd of Keilhau 
boys, led by their teacher, went around Dresden. 
Likewise a flight from luxury to primitive sim- 
plicity. The diet was most frugal, a return 
almost to the acorn of the old Teutonic forest. 
The dress discarded all modern fashion and even 
comfort : lioht flaxen ofarments, the Turner's 
uniform, the bovs wore summer and winter; no 



188 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

neck-tie, shirts with a turn-over collar; long hair 
and often bare-headed ; they sought to return to 
old-German costume. They would not use the 
modern names, if they had even a remote foreign 
origin; Latin Onkel (uncle, avunculus) was 
tabooed and German Olteim, took its place. 
Names of phices and mountains in the neighbor- 
hood were re-baptized, so that the native peas- 
ant could not tell what the boys were talking 
about. But when the name of the peasant him- 
self was altered (for instance neighbor Ildnold 
into Hainliold)^ the man protested with vigor. 
All, however, was to be reconstructed after the 
ideal pattern. Chiefly, however, there was the 
flight to the age of chivalry and its romance, its 
castles and tournaments and its weapons ; partic- 
ularly its spirit was cultivated, as has been already 
set forth. This was more the trend of Langethal ; 
Froebel himself had more of the flight to nature, 
and also to the Teutonic folk-spirit, wherein 
Middendorf seems to have coincided with him. 

Thus Romanticism has found its educator, who 
is seeking to realize its principle in a system of 
instruction, and to impart it to the rising genera- 
tion. But let his advance be duly noted: he is 
not simply dreaming the dream of Romanticism, 
he is realizing its idea, and thus is going beyond 
its dualism, making the Ideal a reality. He is 
training the will here as in other respects, and so 
has started to bridge the grand Teutonic chasm. 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 189 

Just at this point we may see his advance upon 
Pestalozzi, Avhose great eckicative instrumentality 
is the object-lesson (Anschaung) internalizing 
the tiling of sense. But Froebel adds the exter- 
nalizino^ act, the creating' the tliino^ in order to 
master it ; hence he will train the will throug^h 
education, while Pestalozzi emphasizes the train- 
ing of the intellect through the senses. So it 
comes that Pestalozzi is a German in his educa- 
tional work and is cherished specially by the 
Germans, the people of the intellect. On the other 
hand Froebel, thouoh a German, has never been 
adopted by the German pedagogical world, but 
by the Anglo-Saxons, the will-people, whose edu- 
cational prophet he seems destined to become. 

Hence, Keilhau is epoch-making in the history 
of education. As to Froebel, it was his training 
for the kindergarden, in wiiich the will element 
comes out more strongly. But the school's very 
merit produced a corresponding defect ; the ma- 
terial of knowledge, though not neglected, fell 
behind, and the complaint was often heard that 
the boys did not learn anything at Keilhau. 
And what they did learn did not fit into any pre- 
existent educational scheme; if they went to 
anot*her school, they could not enter the corre- 
sponding class, for there was nothing to corre- 
spond with the Keilhau procedure. 

As Froebel was a man of will in training wills, 
this procedure or curriculum ( Gang it was called) 



190 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

became as fixed as a coat of stone, unyielding as 
iron. He fell into a faith in his own pedagogical 
infallibility ; if the boys played far more than in 
any other school, it was always within the stone 
wall of the method (Gang). Hence also arose 
the complaint that even along with this cast-iron 
method or course of study, there was a lack of 
order. It is also affirmed that Froebel was prac- 
tically not a good teacher, because he wandered 
too far from the lesson, which, however,, was 
rigidly fixed in the course of study. Some truth 
we may well see in these statements. Still Keil- 
hau in spite of its defects, possibly by virtue of 
them, was an epoch-making pedagogical effort. 

In the school there can be no doubt that there 
was a strong current of reaction against existent 
authority. Why should there not be, Keilhau 
being a flight from the present with its estab- 
lished order? The boys on their trips sang 
songs of freedom, Avar-songs of the War of Lib- 
eration (1815), and did not spare satire against 
the crowned heads of Germany. Julius Froebel, 
who was there as a pupil, calls Keilhau a breed- 
ing nest (^rw^/ies^) of revolution, and became a 
socialist himself. The Kudolstadt government 
seems not to have disturbed them at home, but 
when they crossed the frontier, they often had 
little skirmishes, of course never going beyond 
words, with the police of other countries. (27) 

It is curious what hostility the long hair of the 



FBOEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. 191 

boys excited. Yet we must recollect that this 
had become a badge of protest if not of revolu- 
tion; all the socialists, reformers, world-remodel- 
ers wore their hair long at this time. And the 
same peculiarity is still observable in our own 
country. The new Idea getting into the head of 
the man seems to desire to cover itself over and 
over with layers of capillary growth ; while the 
same Idea getting into the head of the woman 
wishes to free itself of those superabundant 
locks which are usually considered the chief or- 
nament of the sex. The long-haired men and 
the short-haired women have become proverbial 
in America to designate the considerable band of 
radical reformers. Will any naturalist explain 
the ground of this difference in the w^ay the Idea 
clothes itself in the heads of the two sexes? 

It is recorded that when on one of their foot- 
trips a body of Keilhau pupils were about to cross 
over the Bohemian frontier, an Austrian officer 
stopped them and forbade their proceeding fur- 
ther unless they cut their hair. And when a w^ild 
band of Froebel's lads were passing through the 
cathedral square at Erfurt with their old German 
costume and streaming locks, a Prussian sub- 
altern caught one of them by the shock of the 
hair, and addressed him insultingly: *' Cut your 
hair, boy; pfui! it looks bad." 

The Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, in 
whose government- Keilhau is situated, was in- 



192 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

clined to protect the school, but he hiid at last to 
yield to rei)reseiitations of other German Powers, 
especially of Prussia, and order an investigation. 
He sent his inspector of schools, Dr. CJiristian 
Zeh, who reached Keilhau November 23d, 1824, 
and spent two dajs in carefully examining the 
work. The result was the most favorable notice 
that Keilhau ever received, as Dr. Zeh's report 
sparkles at every point with praise and enthusi- 
asm. The kind-hearted, yet keen-eyed inspector 
notices, first of all, the domestic foundation, sixty 
people constituting really one family, and making 
all its members, young and old, teachers and 
pupils, a vast school-home. Then he recognizes 
and lauds the principle of self -activity, so strik- 
ingly dominant in the instruction, — also he 
notices the various branches in brief review. In 
the document is the completest recognition that 
Froebel ever had, and must have been a kind of 
boomerang to the hostile Powers that had in- 
sisted on the investigation. Prince Giinther of 
Eudolstadt could now confront them with this 
official report, and he left the school undisturbed 
as far as instruction was concerned. 

Still he was one of the lesser potentates of 
Germany at that time, and he had to do some- 
thing to appease his big brothers. So he flings 
the very smallest tub he can find to the angry 
whale. The decree goes forth that the boys 
should cut their hair and get new coats, and so 



FEOEBEL AS PIUNCIPAL. 193 

look like other people. But think for a moment 
ere he pjisses, of generous Christian Zeh with 
his kind word for Froebel ! Long will he be 
remembered for that, when everything else he 
did has quite vanished. Just that one coura- 
geous act of recognizing the worth of a perse- 
cuted man will buoy his name up from sinking 
into the sea of oblivion, and the Prince of 
Rudolstadt has apparently done the most famous 
deed of his reign, all unconscious of what* Time 
has in store for him. 

So the Keilhau boys had to be shorn like a 
flock of lambs at a sheep-shearing. A grand 
hair-cuttino- bee we can imao:ine to have taken 
place at the school, with games and music and 
festivities. But it would seem that the old bell- 
wethers, Froebel and Middendorf , did not submit 
to have their locks ttdvcn off, or let them ofrow 
again to full length. For in a j^ear or so after- 
wards they appear at Gottingen with their long 
hair, exciting no small curiosity and making 
themselves the observed of all observers in the 
streets of that University town. 

And yet woe to Keilhau havino: lost its lono- 
hair, fabled of old to be the seat of man's ele- 
mental energy ! Like strong Samson, who be- 
came weak as other men when his massive locks 
were shorn, Keilhau after this sudden decapil- 
lation (almost amounting to decapitation) will 
sink and swoon away in utter pitiable debility, 

13 



194 rilE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

equal to that of its Hebrew prototype, unable to 
face the swarming host of Philistines, who mock 
and trample upon the fallen Hero. 

Let it, however, be noted that Doctor Zeh's 
report delivered to the government in May, 1825, 
did not tell all that was going on in Keilhau, at that 
time indeed all could not be seen on the surface. 
But there were inner forces at work of a strongly 
negative power which were assailing and disor- 
ganizing the school. Of this destroying energy, 
running quite parallel with the rise of Keilhau, 
some account must next be given. 

YH. 

The Negative Element. 

Froebel's success being continued for six years, 
with absolute authority in his own circle, devel- 
oped his self-confidence to the border of fatuity. 
His brother Christian gave up the attempt to 
exercise any influence over him in business afeirs. 
In the matter of his school method, the belief in 
its infallibility grew upon him, and he could 
brook no suggestion for its improvement. He 
could not endure the least independence on the 
part of his teachers, any dissenting opinion was 
regarded as disloyalty to the school and heresy to 
the cause. The disease which accompanies abso- 
lute power whether in the monarch, or in the 
pedagogue, or in the father of the family, began 



FBOEBEL AS PEINCIPAL. 195 

to show itself distinctly in not a few of the 
actions of Froebel, who sometimes fell into fits 
of irascibility like those of Lear. 

Certain effects were beeomino; manifest. '* The 
united families " were not altogether united, and 
often thwarted secretly his tyranny. Christian 
Froebel was not. happy, nor was his wife, nor 
were his daughters. What kept them atKeilhau? 
No doubt they still believed in the idea of Fred- 
erick Froebel, in spite of his conduct. Then the 
daughters are not going to leave, for the strong- 
est human fetters are beino^ forsfed, and are 
chaining them to Keilhau, the fetters of the 
human heart. But we begin now to see that 
separation which will hereafter ehminate Froebel 
wlK)lly from the control of Keilhau. 

A deeper element of disintegration is the dis- 
satisfaction of the teaching force, outside of 
Middendorf and Langethal. Schoenbein, one 
of the most distinguished chemists of Europe, 
the inventor of gun cotten and the discoverer of 
ozone, taught for a time in the school, but could 
not endure the interference and the overbearing 
supervision of his department. Another scien- 
tific man of distinction, Michaelis, in a fit of 
enthusiasm joined the corps of teachers, but was 
unable to hold out long. Froebel would inter- 
fere and dictate in branches about which he 
knew nothing. 

But the chief of these dissatisfied instructors 



196 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

was a Swiss from Canton Lucern, by the name 
of Herzog, whom Froebel and all Froebel's 
friends and biographers agree in pointing out 
as the incarnation of all the negative forces 
working in and against the school ; in fact, 
Herzog is portrayed as Keilhau's devil. He had 
been befriended by Froebel when in hopeless 
circumstances, and received unsusi3ectingly into 
the bosom of the school, as the . Serpent into 
Paradise. There he played havoc and split 
the institution wide open by his fault-iinding, 
by his nursing every discontented person, and 
finally by secret plotting and calumny. Truly 
the diabolus of Keilhau has appeared and is at 
work as the Destroyer of this new Eden. 

But it must be always understood that the 
Devil himself cannot do much unless he finds 
an element to work in, a material ready to be 
formed by his plastic hand. So Herzog found 
no small quantity of negative material prepared 
by Froebel himself at Keilhau. Of course there 
was the discontent in the teaching force. But 
Herzog soon came upon a far deeper and more 
desperate matter, the real stuff of diabolism, which 
it employs for its greatest successes. Herzog 
discovers and seizes upon Froebel's own deed 
toward his brother's widow, as the very element 
which the fiend loves, and the fuel out of which 
he can build the fires of Hell to torture his 
victim. 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 197 

There is no doubt that Herzog urged the two 
sons of Madam Christoph Froebel to leave the 
institute, which was one of the severest blows he 
could strike at the uncle. Upon his advice 
Julius, the eldest, obtained a position with 
Michaelis, who had already left Keilhau and was 
doing some cartographical work at Stuttgart. 
The nephew went to see the uncle for the last 
time and imparted to him his purpose of leaving : 
" In God's name, go, be off," replied the uncle. 
(28) 

Not long afterwards the second brother, Carl, 
also quit Keilhau, and somewhat later Theodore, 
the third. It is evident that Froebel had built 
his hopes upon these nephews, two of whom had 
shown decided talent, to continue his work as 
his successors and his apostles in the family. 
Bitter was the disappointment when they became 
renegades to his cause, for so he regfarded their 
action. " The first letter of mine," says Julius 
Froebel, " he sent back unopened, and he gave 
my brother Carl to understand that his (Carl's) 
letters would be thrown into the fire unread. 
Only 22 years later did he write me a few friendly 
Lines, thanking me for sending him one of my 
written productions." 

Such is the intensity of the Furies of the 
Family Froebel, whose birth has already been 
described. It indicates the deep scission now 
taking place at Keilhau. Herzog also leaves the 



198 THE LIFE OF FRO E BEL. 

institute and goes to Jena, where he is made 
Doctor and Professor, for Ilerzog is a man of 
unquestioned talent. But he still plays the part 
of Keilhau's devil, and reviles Froebel and the 
school. Alas! only too much material can he 
iind for his diabolic work. Chiefly that action 
of Frederick Froebel toAvard his brother's sister, 
who started his school, sacrificed her property 
for him, gave even her silver plate to meet his 
emergencies — there she is yonder living in pov- 
erty at Yolkstadt, while her sons have to leave 
school -in order to make a livelihood for her and 
for themselves, with debts still unpaid by success- 
ful Keilhau. Then other debts unpaid ; in fact 
the character of Frederick Froebel as debt- 
payer — what a theme for the evil-minded reviler 
and destroyer? And the fiend is on hand, at 
Jena, and elsewhere, busy with his negative vitriol 
dissolving Keilhau and its school. 

But we must repeat that Froebel himself has 
amassed the tinder and brimstone to make his 
own hell-fire ; Herzog applies very diligently the 
match. But the match would go out, were there 
no materials just ready to burn. Still in spite 
of these negative energies, and before they pro- 
duce their explosion, Keilhau is to rise yet to its 
fairest bloom, to have its year of pure flowering 
and supreme development. 

Such a demonic destroyer (Beelzebub) has 
gotten into Keilhau, and somehow gets into every 



FEOEBEL AS PlilNCIPAL. 199 

school at some time, yea, into every fair Eden, 
so true is the old story of man's fall. We recol- 
lect how Satanic Schmid (thus many speak and 
write of him) crept into good Pestalozzi's school 
at Yverdon, creating untold confusion; at first 
expelled, he returns and expels everj^body except 
his noble victim, Pestalozzi himself. And even 
into our kindergarden, most innocent paradise of 
all, the Evil One has been known to insinuate 
himself, in the shape of a beautiful woman, pos- 
sibly Lilith re-incarnated, that eldest daughter of 
Lucifer and first temptress of father Adam. 

But enough of this " negative element," how- 
ever real ; let us turn and witness the fair vision of 
Keilhau's orandiose inflorescence and culmination 
in Love's festal pomp and revelry. 

VIII. 

The Flowering of Keilhau. 

What wonderful new festival is this at Keilhau 
on the ItJth of September, 1825, in Avhich the 
school, the teachers, the ladies, put on their gay- 
est attire, and break out into a grand general jol- 
lification? Two betrothals at the same time are 
celebrated; whose are they, think ye? Let our 
fair reader guess, for she has a sharp eye in such 
matters. . One she has rightly suspected a good 
while, so that she is not surprised when she hears 
that Heinrich Langethal is now publicly betrothed 



200 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

to Ernestine Crispine, the adopted daughter of 
Madam Henriette Froebel. ^ Thus the secret of 
the heart has come out to sunshine ; we at least 
have always surmised that Langethal had this 
maiden in mind when he urged Froebel to bring 
to Keilhau the Berlin lady. Our gallant young 
knight has won his bride, and is going to wind 
up his romance of life with a happy conclusion. 

The second betrothal is that of Wilhelm 
Middendorf to Albertine, daughter of Christian 
Froebel. I know what Middendorf s bride said 
to him, or what I would say if I were in her 
place : ' ' Dearest Wilhelm, I love you, and I deem 
you the greatest catch in all Germany, but may 
I state my anxiety on one point? I am afraid 
you love my uncle Frederick more than you do 
me." Well may Albertine have said some such 
thing to her sweet Wilhelm during these happy 
but anxious days, for Middendorf s devotion to 
Froebel almost reached the point of personal 
absorption . * ' A ch aracter like that of St . John , ' ' 
said an admiring friend one day. " Yes," re- 
plied Langethal, who was present, " such, indeed, 
is Middendorf, and Froebel is his Christ." 

Then the third man we must note, who is flit- 
ting in and out of Keilhau during these days with 
a tremendous inner conflict in his heart between 
two duties — duty to love and duty to parent. 
For five years (1823-8) he goes and comes, 
fluttering about Keilhau like a moth around a 



FBOEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. 201 

lamp, the poor fellow! We allude to Baro]), 
Middendorf s sister's son, born at Dortmund, 
1802, who is destined to become principal and 
proprietor of the Keilhau school, and in such 
capacity to perform a most important service to 
the later Froebelian cause. A lofty and peculiar 
niche he holds in the Keilhau Pantheon; for 
Barop is the only man of the lot apparently Avho 
can stand before Froebel and firmly say to him. 
No ! enduring all his irascibility and even impre- 
cations with an unflinching front, then turning 
to help him and save him from his own mistakes 
and failures. 

Like every school experiment, which proposes 
to make man and society over and to reform the 
world through educating the j^outh, Keilhau 
began early to attract a stream of visitors. 
Amono^ these, in the vear 1823, was our yomw 
friend Johannes Arnold Barop, student of theol- 
ogy, who had come to see uncle Wilhelm Mid- 
dendorf, having heard a good deal about 
Keilhau in his family, chiefly by way of condem- 
nation. For Middendorf 's father did not approve 
of his son's abandonment of theology for peda- 
gogy, especially for such a wild pedagogical 
scheme as that of Keilhau, where the boys seemed 
to do pretty much as they pleased, and where 
rumor said many other vagaries were rampant. 

Young Barop, aged 21, thus resolves to pay a 
little visit to his uncle and see the school by the 



202 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

way. But he becomes interested and prolongs 
his stay ; meanwhile he undergoes a great conver- 
sion, very similar to that already recorded of his 
uncle, a conversion from theology to education, 
truly a baptism in the spirit of the time. Secretly 
he has determined to be a teacher, and that too 
a teacher at Keilhau, the Lord willing; for there 
is no other place on this earth quite like it. 

But parallel with this religious change of heart 
is another and even deeper change of heart. He 
has seen Fraulein Emilie, second daughter of 
Christian Froebel, and there read a message, 
which bids him in still more compelling terms to 
chano:e his vocation and return to Keilhau. But 
what are these doings which he cannot help 
noting, especially in his sympathetic state of 
mind? This it is: that uncle Middendorf shows 
decided inclination toward the eldest daughter of 
Christian Froebel, Albertine, and some crisis in 
their case is surely approaching. That would be 
a fine scheme for uncle and nephew to marry 
these two sisters and both become educators and 
promulgators of the new Idea. 

Therewith, however, rises in the bosom bitter 
conflict, for young Barop well knows that his 
father, who is Councillor of Justice, wealthy and 
of high standing, has outlined an altogether dif- 
ferent career for his son. The very thought of 
the boy quitting his vocation, and degrading the 
high position of his family and going to live with 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 203 

that crazy band of enthusiasts at Keilhau, set 
father Barop on his head, the stern, unyielding 
man of Justice and the Law. " That boy shall 
get no money of mine," he shouts in wrath. 
** Enough that you Keilhau people have taken my 
wife's brother, Middendorf, and humiliated us ; 
now you take my boy, but he shall have not a 
penny." 

Barop has to leave Keilhau for the present, 
but unless I much mistake the youth he will 
come back ; he will pass through fire to return 
to Keilhau. But now he must go off to com- 
plete his studies and to do his allotted military 
service, such as is required of every citizen. But 
he will come back, even if he has to defy his 
angry father, and stare disinheritance in the 
face. Such is the stuff in the man, and the test- 
inof which he has to undero^o in order to brinoj 
out its quality. He will come back entranced 
by the divine idea of Froebel, and still more by 
that other divine idea, incarnate in Froebel' s 
niece, the lovely Emilie, for so he must regard 
her in her terrestrial appearance. He will come 
back, with theological examination passed, with 
his year's Prussian military service finished, with 
every duty done except that one impossible duty 
of obedience to parent, the stern old Councillor 
of Justice, bidding him renounce Keilhau and 
the lovely. Emilie. Can't do it, keep your prop- 
erty, I shall follow my love and the Idea. 



204 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Surely Providence has this youth in training for 
some desperate work yet to be done, as such a 
character is not developed in the Avorld without 
a purpose. So Barop must wait, wait many 
years till his apprenticeship be served, when love 
will blossom out into marriage. Not till 1831, 
after many trials of his own and of Keilhau too ; 
but that is far ahead, and must now be dismissed 
for another happy festival which is just crossing 
the path of this biography. 

This is the double weddino^ of Lana^ethal and 
Middendorf which took place in the spring of 
1826, the season of flowers. On Ascension day, 
when the Lord ascended to Heaven, so did these 
two couples in imitation of the supreme example, 
to the extent which their human terrestrial limit- 
ations would permit. Some sixty pupils, the 
highest number Keilhau ever reached, are said to 
have been present at the celebration. No lack 
of money now; see the festoons, flowers, inter- 
twined with poetry, song and dance. Let us 
note, however, that the original fraternity of 
three — Froebel, Middendorf, Langethal — is 
now completely dissolved into marriage, from 
which event new results are sure to spring. 

Such is, however, the highest point of the 
prosperity of the school ; in the double wedding 
Keilhau puts forth its supreme flower, doing a 
kind of svmbolic deed ; the s^reat Idea seems 
successful and strides victorious over its ene- 



I 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 205 

mies. What can henceforth thwart its progress? 
A feeling of triumph, perchance of arrogance; 
yet notice! what ominous sign is this which we 
witness ? 

This very year the pupils begin to fall off ; 
next 3^ear rapid is the descent, till at last in the 
year 1829 the number has sunk to five, and Keil- 
hau has gone back to its numerical starting-point 
in 1817. A whiz downward which makes the 
head dizzy; what is the cause of it? Fate has 
smitten Keilhau at the very moment of its fair- 
est flowerinoj and sent it reelinor backward to the 
beojinnino^ ; a grim Nemesis seems to have wreaked 
vengeance upon the double wedding of Midden- 
dorf and Lano-ethal, havino- wrested from them 
the means of support for their new-born families. 
Such is the stunning back-stroke which Froebel 
and all Keilhau receive at the top of their great- 
est success. Are they really getting their own 
for deeds done in the past? And are the Unseen 
Powers brino'ino^ home to them some violation, af- 
ter many year-s of quiescence — delaying, not for- 
getting? At any rate the blow has fallen with a 
marvelous co-incidence in it, and the wondering 
reader cannot help thinking of Frau Christoph 
Froebel, still off yonder at Yolkstadt in poverty, 
with her curse upon Keilhau in a strange process 
of fulfillment. (29) 



206 TEE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

IX. 

Literary Keilhau. 

In 1826, the year of the double marriage, 
there was another kind of flowering of Keilhau, 
which we winy name the literary, in a book called 
The Education of Man. At the same time with 
the bloom of the family and the school, Keilhau 
blossoms out in a piece of writing which has be- 
come famous, the author being Froebel himself. 
Yet during the life-time of its author, the book 
was wholly unsaleable and unread by the world 
outside of the Keilhau circle. 

Froebel had previously, from the year 1820, 
been giving expression to himself and his work 
through the printed page. In the mentioned year 
(1820) he wrote an address To our German Peo- 
ple, Avhich recalls Fichte's book with nearly the 
same title. Froebel at Berlin already had been 
profoundly influenced by Fichte's appeal for the 
education of the people. It was Fichte who 
directed Germany and especially Prussia to Pesta- 
lozzi as the great reformer of instruction. Froebel 
is clearly moving on the same line, only he pro- 
poses to do the practical work, to establish the 
school, has in fact already established it at Keil- 
hau, could the public but see the matter in that 
light. His scheme, however, is not merely the 
education of the German people, but the edu- 
cation of Humanity. 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 207 

After this first booklet, several others appear, 
all of them on the principles and methods of 
education, especially those practiced at Keilhau. 
One of these little volumes is reviewed by the 
philosopher Krause in 1823, who wrote an article 
which will hereafter become memorable in Froe- 
bel'slife. An appreciative word from a noble 
man will be a source of consolation in a dark 
hour, and will encourage the prostrate soul to rise 
again and begin a new career. 

But all these small treatises, after due lapse of 
time, culminate in The Education of Man, v^^Ynoh. 
shows many a sign of being a collection of essays, 
often of paragraphs, written at various periods 
during the preceding years. For it is not a 
well-organized book ; full of sudden skips and 
gaps; also full of repetitions in both thought 
and expression ; an amorphous book in spite of 
a certain outward order in places ; very obscure 
in spots, then clear in spots to triteness. But 
with all its drawbacks it is often very suggestive ; 
a book abounding in sudden intuitions, and thus 
appealing strongly to a certain class of minds, 
especially of female minds ; one may note that 
women have often been seen to delve and even to 
revel in this book with a delight which no man 
probably has ever experienced in reading it. 
There is great unanimity that it is a hard book 
for the masculine mind to blaze its way through, 
since to most of us, especially on the first perusal, 



208 THE LIFE OF FBOEDEL. 

it is like a Mexican cliappjiral through which 
there is no path, into which there is no pene- 
tration by mortal man except with grubbing-hoe 
and ax and fire. 

One of the difficulties of the book is its 
nomenclature which is large! j derived from Ger- 
man Philosophy of the Jena period, especially 
from Schelling's Philosophy of Nature. It is a 
mistake to say that the book has been deeply in- 
fluenced by the doctrines of Krause, whose inter- 
course with Froebel comes later, as we shall soon 
see. The employment of Nature as the grand 
means of education through its symbolism rather 
than through its immediate experimental side, is 
enforced in The Education of Man, and is 
derived from Schelling. The fundamental pro- 
cess of education as unfolded in this book is that 
Man through Nature returns to God. Over and 
over again is this proposition or its equivalent 
maintained, and in it we may see how completely 
in Froebel' s mind religion blends with education, 
and how profoundly the educator has become the 
modern priest. 

When it comes to educational method, Froebel 
leaves the reader with the problem unsolved. 
He sees the two sides, the prescriptive and the 
spontaneous, but cannot reconcile them. At this 
question he labors in his introduction to The 
Education of Man with a heavy outlay of effort, 
chasing the two sides one after the other through 



FBOEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. 209 

a long string of contrasted predications ; all to no 
pur})o.se : he ends in the dualism with which he 
started. His leaning is doubtless toward the 
spontaneous, permissive, capriciously free side of 
the child, yet always with exceptions. 

In this respect the book mirrors the school at 
Keilhau, which, as we have already seen, showed 
on the one hand an autocracy approaching despot- 
ism, and on the other a freedom approaching 
caprice or even license. This contradiction 
worked itself out at last in the decay of the 
school, which continued until Froebel was re- 
moved from its control. Such was his discipline : 
he had to be taken away from Keilhau in order 
to recover from its scission and to become the 
founder of the kindergarden. 

In this book we should note another doctrine 
which involves the author in deep confusion and 
contradiction. Ao^ainst the old relis^ious tenet of 
total depravity, Froebel maintained that the 
child was by nature good, indeed quite perfect 
from the start. What then is the use of educat- 
ing him? To be sure, Froebel felt this difficulty, 
and seeks to obviate it by this and that Hmitation 
and exception (see introduction to TJie Education 
of Man). Still the inner rent remained both in 
his soul and in his school, and clung: to him 
during his whole middle period of which we are now 
giving the record. Rousseau's indignant protest 
against the old oppressive spirit exercised toward 

14 



210 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

the child mightily possessed Frocbel, and drove 
him into hostility against all prescription — a one- 
sided result. So he must get out of Keilhau and 
its contradiction, must transcend the stand-point 
of The Education of Mai}, ere he can accomplish 
his greatest work in the world. 

But all this will require time. From the first 
publication of TJte Edtication of Man in 1826 
till the establishment of the first kindergarden 
at Blankenburg in 1837, eleven years full of 
change, inner struggle and development will 
pass. He has to vrork out of the dualism of 
Keilhau and solve the prol)lem of freedom, which 
he does in the kindergarden. (30) 

And here we must note a sfrave mistake which 
is frequently committed by well-meaning in- 
structors. We hear it often said that The Edu- 
cation of Man contains tlie philosophy of the 
kindergarden. How improbable such a state- 
ment is on the surface may be seen by a simple 
comparison of the above dates (1826 and 1837). 
But when we look into the inner life of Froebel 
we find that he had to undergo a great discipline, 
and to correct deep-seated errors ere he could 
pass from Keilhau to Blankenburg, ere he could 
rise from Froebel the schoolmaster to Froebel 
the kindergardner. 

We have to recognize, then, that the Educa- 
tion of Man is the product, or, if you please, the 
philosophy of a boys' school, not that of the 



FBOEBEL AS PRINCIPAL. 211 

kindergardcn ; the two differ in the class of 
pupils, differ in the kind of teachers ,^ differ in 
the method, differ in the educational standpoint. 
Undoubtedly the two have many things in com- 
mon; we often see Froebel in his book as the 
incipient or the potential kindergardner, but not 
yet developed. 

So literary Keilhau, after budding through a 
series of booklets, is full-blown in a bio: book. 
Since the brother, Christian Froebel, came with his 
money in 1820, Frederick Froebel can be author 
and print at his own expense, or his brother's, 
what he writes. He has not found and prob- 
ably cannot find a publisher, who will furnish the 
funds for printing and exploiting these writings. 
They lack saleability, which is the first and last 
category of a publisher, who does business for 
the nioney in it, and not for the Idea. The 
latter, however, is Froebel' s all-absorbing end, 
and so between him and a publisher there is a 
chasm simply impassable. 

Froebel has, accordingly, to publish his own 
writings, if they are ever to be born into the 
readinfi: world at all. It is foolish in Wichard 
Lano^e to blame Froebel for this ; it sounds too 
much like the babble of a certain parasite, the 
publisher's lickspittle, whose servile text is that 
the sun of all authorship rises and sets in a pub- 
lishing house, the author himself being just no- 
body or what the publisher chooses to make him. 



212 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

It may take one, ten, fifty or a hundred years for 
a book to come to validity, according to circum- 
stances ; but, if it be printed, it will grow at last, 
provided it have the vitality. The author may 
be dead, it is true, and will receive no reward in 
money or fame for his work, but that he must 
expect, if he writes anything truly original. 

Here conies a man with a book not an echo or 
repetition, but unique, epoch-making in its way, 
a man who has, therefore, no public, and if he had 
there would be no need of his book. His public 
is to be made, or re-made, re-constructed, filled 
with a new Idea not easy to get, perhaps not 
pleasant to take. In the nature of the case there 
is no publisher for such a book, never has been 
and never will be, or not long at least, for he will 
soon be bankrupt. Still the book has to be printed 
and planted by the author, if he fulfill his destiny, 
if he have any faith at all in his mission. 

Consider The Education of Man now, after 
the lapse of three-quarters of a century from its 
birth, in contrast with its early neglect. Trans- 
lated into every language of Europe ; sought 
after by every publisher of an educational library ; 
read by every teacher who seeks to be acquainted 
with the history and literature of his profession; 
studied and pored over by. thousands of kinder- 
gardners every year, till some of them can repeat 
it almost by heart; three English translations 
known to us (and there may be others) Avith pub- 



FBOEBEL AS PBINCIPAL. 213 

lishers raking in the profits of a book which they 
woukl have flung into the fire if offered to them 
at first hand : such is the difference between then 
and now, all because Froebel, with faith in his 
Idea, wrote, printed, and planted, regardless of 
publisher and publisher's pubHc. In this act of 
Froebel, as in so many others of his, we believe 
tliat there is a prophetic strain : the time is com- 
ing, if not already here, when the New Idea 
must publish itself at its own cost of toil and 
hard cash, leaving to the regular pubhsher the 
reproduction of the whole paraphernalia of the 
dead past, in the form of text -books, dictionaries, 
cyclopedias, series of all kinds, requiring in their 
authors the simple mechanical act of pouring 
water from one bottle into another perchance of 
a different shape. 



CHAPTER THIBD. 

THE PRINCIPAL DETHRONED. 

After the glory of the double wedding the 
blow fell upon Keilhau, the blow which had long 
been secretly preparing. Froebel will be com- 
pelled to leave the school over which he has pre- 
sided for a dozen years and more ; yet this is not 
all ; he will feel himself forced to quit his coun- 
try. Another uncertain fluctuating period sets 
in till he goes to Switzerland in 1831. 

Very deep runs his complaint against his neph- 
ews, whom he charo^es with '' more than ino^rati- 
tude " for having deserted him and taken from 
him " their youthful energies" upon which he 
had relied ' ' to bring back a new springtide of in- 
tensified life " into his institution, when it needed 
them most. But those " youthful energies " had 

(214) 



\ 



T^E PBINCIPAL DETHRONED. 215 

become his bitterest foes, having taken up their 
mother's cause, and being supported in their 
malignity by that insidious fiend of Keilhau (for 
such Froebel deemed him) the Swiss Mephis- 
topheles already mentioned. So the reader, with 
pity and with terror we may hope, has again to 
look upon the Furies of the Family Froebel at 
work, requiting with grim vengeance, as is their 
wont, some violation of eternal riofht, of w^hich 
they are the unforgetting and remorseless vindi- 
cators. Even old Greek Hesiod could see hover- 
ing in the air ten thousand demons, guardians of 
Justice ( Dike ) , whose function was to scourge the 
guilty man for his hidden deed of wrong. But 
whatever be our judgment of Froebel' s action, 
one thing is certain : the blow falls upon him and 
keeps falling upon him with a vengeful thud, and 
its main source can be traced back to that one 
promise of his, which has certainly waked up the 
Nemesis of injured Love, and is hounding him 
out of Keilhau and even out of Germany. (31) 
Such is unquestionably the situation ; let the 
sympathetic reader justify where and how and 
whom he will. But here comes a new question 
and most important of all : Can our Froebel rise 
up under this rain of fatal blows? Granted that 
throuojh his deed he has woven a dark strand of 
destiny into his life, can he pluck it out again or 
neutralize its mio^ht? Verv interestinsf is the 
problem: Can Frederick Froebel, now in the 



216 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

clutches of Fate and apparently doomed as its 
victim, make the grand turn and show himself 
the master of Fate, veritably the Fate-compeller ? 
In substance this is what we are to witness in the 
following Chapter. 

I. 

The Fall of Keilhau. 

A number of causes contributed to the rapid 
descent of Keilhau, some quite superficial, others 
deep, and one the deepest. The more important 
we may call up in a rapid survey. 

Debts had continued to accumulate even in the 
time of prosperity. Neither Froebel nor his wife 
were good managers. In fact, there is strong 
testimony that Frederick Froebel was deficient in 
the sense of debt-paying. Not that he was dis- 
honest, not that he used what he borrowed for 
his own personal gratification in the way of high- 
living or money-making; he subordinated all, 
even his creditors, to the Idea, with or without 
their consent. 

Christian Froebel, who had given his entire 
possessions to Keilhau, and rescued it from finan- 
cial ruin, was a good business man, but he was 
wholly set aside by his brother in the management 
of the property. Christian's wife, a thrifty 
housekeeper, did not or could not restrain the 
the bad manao^ement of Madam Henrietta 
Froebel. Middendorf had thrown in his little 



TEE PRINCIPAL DETHBONED. 217 

all, and it was soon swallowed. Barop could get 
nothing from the stern and disgruntled old 
Councillor of Justice, his father. 

As long as fifty or sixty pupils were paying 
their tuition, interest on debts could be met and 
the school might continue to swim along free of 
the dunner, though encumbered with obligations. 
But the rapid drop in the number of students 
brought the institution to a sudden . standstill, 
which gave such a jolt that everything tumbled 
together in confusion. 

The result was that a secret opposition to 
Froebel's further management arose in the insti- 
tution among his best friends. It began to be 
seen that he must be eliminated from the admin- 
istration of the school, of which he had shown 
himself totally incapable. Yet nobody thought 
for a moment of deserting the Idea. In fact, the 
question was : How shall we save Froebel from 
himself, save Froebel the educator from Froebel 
the administrator? Herein Barop is the coming 
man. He possesses great administrative capacity, 
and at the proper moment will get hold of the 
reins of authority; then he has a fearless, in- 
flexible will, Avhich can say no, even to Froebel, 
and endure all the latter 's irascibility and exe- 
cration without ever becoming disloyal to the 
cause. Quite a man is this Barop, whom we 
have already noted as being under training for 
some desperate busin^ess. 



218 THE LIFE OF FBOEJBEL. 

Another obstacle for Keilhau was the trend of 
the time. All liberal men, who had shown dis- 
appointment because the great awakening of the 
folk-si)irit in 1815 and the War of Liberation 
had brought no fruits of freedom, were sus- 
pected, persecuted, and imprisoned. The reac- 
tion was intensified when a crack-brained student 
by the name of Sand murdered the poet Kotz- 
ebue. A deep feeling of antagonism on the part 
of all the established governments sprang up 
against the very names of progress and freedom. 

In the nature of things Keilhau could not es- 
cape suspicion. No direct political propaganda 
was carried on there, but certainly an indirect, 
arfd shame if there had not been in those days. 
Barop innocently turned the scent of the Prus- 
sian police toward Keilhau, where he happened 
to be on a visit when his papers were seized at 
Halle — he being a student there at the time — 
though no incriminating evidence was found in 
them. The result was Keilhau bea^an to be 
looked upon as a '* breeding- nest of young dema- 
goguery," the same charge being made against 
many schools and universities of the time. This 
was the reason why Inspector Zeh had been sent 
to see what was going on at Keilhau, out of 
which visit grew his Report above cited. 

At this period there was no German nationality, 
no great organized State Teuton-uniting, but a 
dissevered, recalcitrant mass of little States. 



THE PBINCIPAL DETHBONED. 219 

But if there was no German Nation, there was 
emphatically a German People, and a mighty 
impulse was throbbing in the German heart to- 
ward a politically united fatherland. This was 
the impulse to which Froebel specially responded. 
But there is no question that it was against the 
established order as then embodied in princedom, 
dukedom, kingdom, and what not. The folk- 
spirit was fostered at Keilhau, no doubt of it; 
song and story, custom and costume, even the 
food and shelter showed a return to the primeval 
folk-mother Teutonia, who was still to be found 
by the diligent seeker in her ancient haunts amid 
the forests and on the mountains. 

The school at Keilhau could not, therefore, be 
called friendly to the established order in Church 
or State, as they showed themselves in Germany 
during this period. We have already seen how 
Froebel went back to the old Teutonic folk-spirit, 
which he invoked to educate itself anew in order 
to produce^ better men and of course better in- 
stitutions. The implication was that the present 
institutional system was not satisfactory. 

A deeper ground for Keilhau' s decline lay in 
the educational principle of the school itself. 
It labored under an inner contradiction, which 
with time must end in disruption. Froebel was 
still involved in the difficulty which came down 
to him from Rousseau ; he made the education of 
the boy essentially permissive, having really no 



220 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

place for prescription. Yet Froebel was one of 
the most autocratic principals that ever lived, as 
regards both the course of study and the teachers 
under him. So there was always a streak of 
caprice in the pupil, and a streak of arbitrariness 
in the master, a corner of disorder and a corner 
of oppression. This inner rent we have already 
seen formulated in the Educatio7i of Man ^ which 
is the theoretical expression of the boys' school at 
Keilhau, but not of the kindergarden. 

Still let no one underestimate Keilhau and its 
work; it had started principles which make it 
immortal. Possibly its very one-sidedness ren- 
ders them more impressive. Keilhau was after- 
wards a success ; but Keilhau the failure is of 
far o;reater sio^nificance than Keilhau the success. 
The tragedy of life teaches always a mightier 
lesson than the happy-making and happy-ending 
comedy. 

But the deepest thread of destiny in the trag- 
edy of Keilhau was spun into the school at its 
birth, for it was really born of that fatal promise, 
ambiguous as any Delphic oracle: *' I shall take 
the place of father to your orphaned children." 
It furnished the chief material in which Herzog 
wrought with such telling effect, for the Keilhau 
diabolus goes over to Jena, where, as student and 
teacher in the central University of all that re- 
gion, he can scatter from a vantage-ground his 
calumnies throughout the whole of Thuringia. 



THE PBINCIPAL DETHRONED. 221 

The spawn of Satan the Destroyer Froebel and 
his friends regard this young Switzer ; but be- 
hold ! here stand Froebel' s two nephews and 
pupils ready to confirm every word of Herzog ; 
yes, .and off yonder at Volkstadt is still living 
widow Christoph Froebel, who also has a painful 
confirmatory tale to tell, if she so chooses. As 
she is a great talker and disputatious, her tongue 
will not fail to open her Pandora box of ills, and 
let them fly to the four winds. 

Thus the Nemesis of violated Love keeps 
working away in its mine underneath Froebel' s 
structure at Keilhau, which is indeed tottering. 
Competent witnesses (says Lange) assure us that 
Herzog did Froebel tmtold injury. The time of 
reckoning has indeed arrived for Froebel ; from 
every quarter of the Heavens echoes of his con- 
duct since the very beginning of Keilhau come 
floating on the air back to his ears. (32) 

But, oh sore-stricken mortal, now is the time 
to show thy supreme manhood. Rise, though 
thou art in the very clutches of Fate, the Fate of 
thine own Deed, which is now returning to thee 
with shrieks of vengeance. Listen to its re- 
proaches : thou hast not paid the just obligation 
between man and man ; thou hast been a despot 
of despots in the very citadel of freedom, though 
claiming to work in the cause of liberty and 
humanity; but, chiefly, thou hast been faithless 
to thy promise of love to woman. Listen to that 



222 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

voice and take its discipline, and then begin thy 
new career. I tell thee a great epoch is coming 
into thy life just now in spite of, yea, by virtue 
of these misfortunes, if thou but rightly digest 
them. Though in the very talons of destiny, 
thou canst rescue thyself; in defiance of thy 
past Deed with all its cohorts of Fates and Furies, 
thou canst still liberate thyself and celebrate thy 
greatest triumph. Up and get ready, master 
that inner fateful limitation of thine, and then 
forth to work, for thy mightiest task is yet to be 
done. 

II. 

* 

Hope and Disappointment. 

In some such fashion as the preceding we 
bring before ourselves the Fall of Keilhau, and 
the precipitation of its principal with his band of 
fellow-workers, men and women, from ^ the 
highest pinnacle of success, down into the nether- 
most abysm of failure and despair, yea, toward, 
if not quite into, the depths of starvation or 
beggary. Still he is not going to remain down 
there, but turns and struggles and stretches forth 
his hands in many an attempt to rise. 

While the blows kept falling thick and heavy 
upon Froebel at Keilhau, he was casting about 
for some change already in 1827, the year of 
the grand crisis in his school. Very naturally 



THE PRINCIPAL DETHRONED. 223 

he thought of friendly Doctor Zeh, who had 
made such a favorable report upon what he saw 
in the Universal German Institute, some two or 
three years before. Moreover, Doctor Zeh was 
the leading man in authority over the educa- 
tional work in the Princedom of Rudolstadt, in 
which Keilhau is situated . The tenure to a piece 
of property exactly suitable for a school dedi- 
cated to the propagation of the New Idea, had 
just passed to the State. Here Froebel thinks 
he sees his chance, and so he writes a letter to 
Doctor Zeh, setting forth the importance of 
using the newly acquired property for the 
noblest of all purposes, namely, education. 

The good Doctor seems to have been willing 
enough, but the plan went to pieces. Had not 
Froebel with his Keilhau Institute given to Prince 
Giinther no end of trouble already? Other gov- 
ernments of Germany had complained, especially 
Prussia, of that pest-hole of young demagoguery 
in his territory, and the liberal Prince had enough 
to do in protecting one such institution without 
starting^ another under that same Froebel. And 
on account of the friendly warmth of Doctor 
Zeh's former report, the latter had probably 
crippled his own influence somewhat, being re- 
garded not exactly as an unbiased witness for the 
Keilhau schoolmaster. 

Whatever be the cause, the scheme failed, the 
Princedom of Kudolstadt was not to have the 



224 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL, 

glory of making the New Idea a part of its Public 
School System. The event, however, indicates 
quite an important phase in the life of Froebel. 
He is now ready to make his educational work 
a belonofino^ of the State, from which it had been 
hitherto quite separated, if indeed it were not 
actually antagonistic to the same. But he be- 
gains to see that he must reconcile himself to the 
established order, nay, that he must constitute 
his work an integral part of that order, if it is to 
be permanent, weal-bringing, and truly universal. 

A great step, we think, in the evolution, or 
perchance revolution, of Froebel now going on 
inwardly; it is a kind of confession that he 
must bring Keilhau out of its aloofness from 
the civi] life of the time, and make his school 
really institutional. He must remove the dual- 
ism which has rent it in twain; then, too, he 
may help transform the State from within, or at 
least make a start in that mighty task. 

We must note, therefore, that Froebel, in the 
pressure of his present calamity, has sought to 
institutionalize his Institute, that is, to bring it 
into harmony and participation with the institu- 
tional world above him and around him. Not 
submission is this to the misfht of an outer des- 
tiny, but the result of a new insight into the 
divine order of the world ; he is clearly rising 
out of nativism into nationalism, he is changing 
from that primitive Teutonic folk-spirit hitherto 



THE PRINCIPAL DETHRONED. 225 

SO emphatically cultivated in Keilhau, to the civ- 
ilized and organized spirit of the Nation, in spite 
of its imperfections at this period. 

Still, his effort is fruitless, and he is thrown 
back into himself almost with violence. What 
will he now seize upon ? whom will he now grasp 
after? After himself, first of all, for he is in 
dano^er of sinkino^ in that oceanic wave of adver- 
sity surging over his whole existence. Accord- 
ingly he will take a retrospect of his entire 
life, and look up afresh the landmarks of his 
career. In this mood of reminiscence he writes 
two autobiographies, both belonging to the pres- 
ent period and tendency. One of them, the 
Letter to the Duke of Meiningen, has already 
been mentioned and used often in the course of 
this narrative; the other, the Letter to Krause, 
is now specially to be drawn upon and woven 
into the texture of Froebel's Life. Whereupon 
there is a call to know somethino^ more of the 
man to whom Froebel in his misfortune is led to 
pour out his heart. 

III. 

The Philosopher Krause. 

In these days, with the great decrease in the 
number of pupils, Froebel has plenty of time on 
his hands, and needing and seeking sympathy, 
he begins to look up those who have in any wise 

15 



226 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

supported him in his work. Going back five 
years to 1822, he recollects that the philosopher 
Krause, who lived at Gottingen, had noticed in 
a prominent periodical of that day (the Isis) the 
Universal German Institute with great favor, and 
had declared the general agreement between his 
philosophy and that of Froebel. Krause did not 
like the name Universal German Institute^ 
though he was friendly to its principles. More- 
over, the Gottingen philosopher has sent his 
printed writings to Froebel, who has hitherto 
neglected them, but now begins to read them. 
(33) 

Krause was the only professor at any of the 
great Universities of Germany that had taken 
notice of Froebel, who complains of the neglect. 
Krause Avas the only professor who appreciated 
the genius of the educator, and gave encourage- 
ment to the New Idea. The greatest educational 
star of modern times was above the horizon, but 
the learned men at the University could not see 
it, for it is not their business to look at new stars, 
and Froebel ought not to have expected it. 

Then there was another sympathetic link of 
connection: Krause was also an unappreciated 
genius. He had wrought out an elaborate sys- 
tem of philosophy of his own, but his follow- 
ino; was not laro^e. Just at this time came the 
supremacy of Hegel at Berlin and in Germany. 
Krause could not help contrasting the small 



THE PRINCIPAL DETHBONED. 227 

number of his adherents with the triumphant 
disciples of the Berlin professor. 

So the two unappreciated geniuses began to 
come together in deep mutual sympathy. Froe- 
bel starts to studying Krause's writings after five 
years of neglect, for which he has some difficulty 
in apologizing, and opens a correspondence which 
a little later leads to a personal visit to the phi- 
losopher at Gottingen. 

Krause was one of the philosophy-builders 
in the great epoch of philosophy-building, which 
was in full bloom at this time in Germany. 
Mighty philosophic structures lie scattered 
through the first half of the present century, 
the grandest period of thought-construction that 
the world Jias yet seen. Most of them are now quite 
solitary and tenantless ; only the excavator by 
profession undertakes to explore these labyrinths. 
An epoch like that of the pyramid-builders in 
the Nile valley, where hundreds of pyramids seem 
to rise suddenly out of the earth. All show toil, 
life-long herculean toil, still there are lesser and 
greater; three or four of supreme magnitude, 
yet even among these is one greatest of all. 
So among these hundreds of philosophic edifices 
there is one greatest of all, but this is not 
Krause's. One of the lesser pyramids among 
this forest of pyramids is his, now attracting the 
tourist chiefly because Froebel entered it and ex- 
plored it in these days for comfort from his 
calamities. 



228 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL 

And another comparison forces itself into 
view : these pyramids are grave-stones, the most 
colossal ever set over mortal remains, and the 
land of the pyramids is a monumental graveyard, 
out of which the Present seeks to restore some 
vanished shape of the Past. So Germany is a 
vast graveyard of philosophies, whicli later ex- 
plorers have tried to dig up and resurrect into 
the new life of the Present. This very Krause 
has had a man devoting a life-time to his resur- 
rection and rehabilitation, namely Von Leon- 
hardi ; in like manner Baader has found his Hoff- 
man, Herbart his Rein and other pedagogical 
revivifiers, and most successfully Schopenhauer 
has been made to live after he was dead, and even 
born dead, mainly through the miraculous man- 
ipulations of Doctor Julius Frauenstadt. 

Froebel, however, never became a follower of 
Krause, indeed, he distinctly refused to be such, 
for he had his own philosophy, or thought he had. 
And every German man in this prolific epoch of 
system-building claimed to have his own philos- 
ophy (seine eigene Philosopliie) . A far-off 
echo of this Teutonic movement could be heard 
some years ago even in the Mississippi Valley, 
among the German farmers of Illinois and Mis- 
souri, German emigrants who had once been 
students at some University, and who also had 
*' their own philosophy," often written out in 
piles of manuscript, product of rainy days and 



THE PRINCIPAL DETHBONED. 229 

of recreation from tilling the soil and from hew- 
inof down the forest. 

So it becomes the duty of the biographer of 
Froebel to conjure up for a few moments the 
philosophic ghost of K. C. F. Krause, since he 
has woven himself into Froebel' s life at a pivotal 
epoch in its history. Very creditable is this in- 
tercourse to the philosopher, who, extending the 
hand at the needful moment, helps Froebel rise 
to his feet more than any other man probably, 
not excepting his Keilhau friends. So honor be 
unto Krause, if not for his philosophy, cer- 
tainly for his human sympathy given in the 
very pinch of destiny. His kind words call 
forth a letter from Froebel, in many ways mem- 
orable, and specially of deep significance to this 
biography of his, whose turning-point it is at a 
most weighty conjuncture. The import of this 
letter is next to be set forth. 

IV. 

Froebel the Fate-compeller. 

So we designate, not altogether willingly, but 
under the stress (or distress) of expression, the 
present section, in the hope that the reader, who 
has also his battle with the constrainino^ Powers 
of Life, may interpret the strange word sympa- 
thetically through his own experience. 

A most important document for showing Froe- 



230 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

bel's inner struggles at this time of humiliation 
and failure is the afore-mentioned letter to 
Krause under date of March 27th, 1828. Its 
main interest lies in the fact that it exhibits the 
man overwhelmed by Fate in his rise to the man 
overcoming Fate, truly the Fate-compeller. He 
is deeply stricken by the Nemesis of his own 
deed, or his own character. But this is not the 
end of the matter ; his call now is to recognize 
whence came the blow, and to master it at its 
very source. 

First is a note of complaint that " life in the 
men outside of me and around me was dead 
beyond resurrection," and he, filled with his 
ideal, did not see their condition. " As children 
not only ascribe human life to stones and pieces 
of wood, but actually behold it in them, so I 
believed that I found a living human spirit in the 
moving shapes of humanity," but I was deceived ; 
he could not convince the masses of the people 
even by the results of his work. So has come 
the grand disillusion about man. Especially bit- 
ter is the fact that ' ' I sought to realize my 
thought with my own people among whom it was 
born;" but the effort was in vain. *'The 
thought was too great, too universally human" 
for the Germans, though if *' I had treacher- 
ously called it English, or French, or what not, 
it would have succeeded better." 

Thus the Fate-stricken man crives himself 



THE PBINCIPAL DETHRONED. 231 

up to complaining, to blaming something else, 
in his moment of weakness. But he knows 
that this is unmanly, yes, that it is untrue, and 
we shall see him turn on the spot and strike 
another note : ' * Therefore must I strive and 
struggle according to eternal Law, in order to 
make my earthly and human error not only 
harmless, but to transform the outer obstruction 
into a means of higher internal furtherance." 
Thus he begins to- sound on his trumpet a Fate- 
compelling note, the prelude of his rise. But 
not yet, not yet, for listen to another drop back 
to unmanly complaint. 

'* I found, indeed, sympathetic men, but they 
were too weak ; they resembled iron filings drawn 
by a magnet; when the spirit wrought upon 
them immediately, they held fast; " otherwise 
not. -This spirit, of course, was I, Frederick 
Froebel. Not a very appreciative account of his 
faithful associates, who seem here implied. 
Even more bitter is his allusion to those who left 
him, Herzog and his nephews, whom he charges 
with more than ingratitude. 

But now comes a swing of the pendulum in 
the other direction. He knows that he is weak 
in such bemoanings, and so he calls a halt to 
himself. " But why do I repeat to you this old, 
old song? By no means for the sake of lament- 
ation or of complaint, nor to throw the blame 
on others, after the manner of thousands of 



232 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

fools." So he cudgels himself, for just this is 
really what he has been doing in the preceding 
outbreaks. Another turn toward the Sun; let 
us now see him mount eagle-like with out- 
stretched pinions in the following : — 

' ' Early and continued observation of myself 
and of life tausfht me what pure thouo^ht has 
since confirmed in me to unshaken conviction, 
namely, that man must find the causes of his 
life's happenings, of his life's destinies at last in 
himself as the one essential and contingent fac- 
tor — in his own feeling, thinking, doing — and 
also find therein the 'ways and means for the 
realization of his selfhood, for the transforma- 
tion of his life." 

May we not now say that Frederick Froebel 
has here seen and expressed the mastery over 
Fate? Certainly he has, and he knows it; he 
speaks of the exceeding comfort and wealth of 
such a conviction, though in his external life 
'' blow followed on blow." Great is his joy in 
shedding that old incumbrance of his, even with 
pain, '' for I see the new and higher life budding 
within." Thus he has won " his loftier dis^- 
nity " in his ''new stage of development." 
This dignity means his rise above the crushing- 
blows of outer destiny, which have smitten him 
along with his school at Keilhau. (34) 

Accordingly he was now ready, and not before, 
to take in hand and appreciate the works of the 



1 



THE PEINCIPAL DETHRONED. 233 

philosopher Krause, to whom he next proceeds 
in his letter to give an account of the events of 
his life. 

Such is the attitude which Froebel now as- 
sumes : he recognizes himself to be the cause of 
his own Fate, and at once starts to transform that 
Self, thus becoming not the victim, nor even the 
stern buffeter with Fate, but its controller, trans- 
figurer, compeller. He utters the lofty convic- 
tion that the crash of Keilhau is a new step to 
the higher work now awaitins: him. In this 
fashion he fits himself into the Divine Order, and 
beholds his lot as a part of its process, which he is 
to see and make his own. He has taken his mis- 
fortune as his discipline, and converted it into a 
stepping-stone for the upward future career. 

It is manifest that Froebel, though 45 years 
old and more, has found a new teacher of him- 
self, namely Life, and is taking the lesson to 
heart. The last and highest personal teacher of 
every mam is his own Deed or line of Deeds 
called Life or Conduct, with their return upon 
him, their penalty of sorrow. Thus he comes to 
know himself in his own finitude, to behold the 
very birth-mark of his mortality through suffer- 
ing, being brought face to face with the limit of 
his own character and compelled to answer the 
question : Shall I sink now beneath it or rise 
above it? To such a brink of abvsmal descent 
or of celestial ascent we see that Froebel has just 



234 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

come and that he does not propose to go 
downwards. 

Yet we must mention the fact that the ultimate 
trainer and educator of man is the World's His- 
tory, quite impersonal and impartial , which is not 
his Deed nor of him, but into which the individ- 
ual educator must fit, to which he must rise 
through the school of Life, and of which he 
must become the bearer in his idea and his work. 
This is just the meaning of FroebeF s terrible dis- 
cipline ; could W' e but behold the flowering of 
Time, we would find that he is in training to be 
the realizer of the Spirit of the Age in Education, 
and must be scourged out of his nature's imper- 
fections, and out the limitations inherent in 
his character, at least as far as they stand in the 
way of his divinely appointed task. 

And the pedagogue cannot help adding the 
remark that the right study of History, for the 
above reason, is deeply educative, especially when 
seen interwoven into its counterpart, which is 
Biography. Or, we may say more definitely, 
the right study of the Father of History ( ancient 
Herodotus) is specially educative, he who first 
saw and imparted to his race this conception 
of the World's History, catching it, as it were, 
in its primal bloom and fragrance, and Avho has 
hardly been equalled since in this regard. 

Returning from these far-stretching thoughts 
to simpler matters in the path of our narrative, 



THB PBINGIPAL DETHRONED. 235 

let us not fail to notice the effect of the friendly 
word, which is not lost, though it may have to 
wait long for the fruit. Krause's sympathetic 
review was not at first regarded by Froebel, in 
the midst of his activity, and of his success. 
But now in the day of misfortune the friendly 
word blooms after years of quiet waiting, and 
bears a marvelous flower, really giving fresh 
hope to the stricken man, becoming the very 
pivot on which he turns about and starts in the 
new life. 

O, Krause, we like this better than any of the 
hard-worded formulas of thy philosophy, over 
which we cannot here undertake to break our 
reader's head, and our own, too. This one act 
of thine, done in human kindness to Frederick 
Froebel, being duly recorded of thee, and sent 
down time through the printed page to his 
myriads of coming disciples, shall make thee 
more memorable than thy grand pyramidal phi- 
losophic edifice on which thou wert building so 
many toilsome years, all thy life in fact. Nay, 
just this act of divine recognition on thy part, 
recoofuizino^ an unrecoo^nized o^enius in his distress, 
has caused us, and will doubtless cause other ex- 
plorers of Froebel' s Life, to resurrect, partially 
at least, thy entombed system of philosophy, 
hunting it up and selecting it for honor out of 
the vast multitude of similar pyramids strewn 
through the philosophers' Vale of Rest. 



236 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

. ' V. 

Froebel's Visit to Krause. 

Soon a new purpose began to dawn in Froe- 
bel's mind, so strong and soul-supporting had 
been the consolation which he had derived from 
Krause' s books and letters, as he lay in Keilhau 
stunned by " blow upon blow " in the hand of 
destiny. He rises and says to himself : "I must 
see him in the body. I shall pay a visit to the 
Philosopher himself at Gottingen." 

Accordingly, in the fall of that same year 
(1828), Froebel sets out upon this pilgrimage, 
taking: his dearest friend, Middendorf, alono^, who 
was his comforter, counsellor, consoler — a true 
high-priest to that deeply humiliated soul. Then 
Middendorf (as his name curiously suggests) was 
the supreme middle-man, a veritable mediator 
for Froebel, who often repelled by his egotism 
and downright rudeness as well as by his appear- 
ance. The silvery -to ngued Middendorf was an 
orator, a persuader of men, and particularly of 
women; with his Avatchful attendance, Froebel 
may be permitted to go to Gottingen. It will 
also be a pleasant diversion, perchance a sugges- 
tive lesson for him, to see the University where 
he had studied some seventeen years before 
(1811). 

So let the two unappreciated geniuses come to- 
gether and have a consolatory talk, and let them 



THE PBINCIPAL DETHRONED. 237 

at least appreciate one another. Krause's 
friends declare that he would have left behind 
him a great school of philosophy like that of 
Heoel if he had only succeeded in ffettins: the 
professorship in Berlin, for which he competed 
with Heoel but which he lost. So he has 
received the blow of Fate also, which has robbed 
him of the opportunity all golden, to be the suc- 
cessor of the o^reat Fichte. He likewise was at 
Jena (1801-4) at the time of the grand philo- 
sophical culmination there, and must have heard 
Schelling and Hegel, both of whom were then at 
Jena. ^ 

What did the two, Froebel and Krause, talk 
about? Philosophy and education, of course; 
or perchance the philosophy of education, in 
which both found their chief interest, thouo^h 
from different directions. It is recorded that 
Krause specially called Froebel 's attention to 
their great predecessor, Comenius, not appreci- 
ated then, who had anticipated many of the doc- 
trines of Pestalozzi and of Froebel a century and 
a half before their time. Among other things, 
Comenius insisted upon object instruction (^An- 
schauungsunterricht) , and he believed in learning 
by self -activity. But that which connects him 
not only with the present but the future Froebel, 
is education of the infant in the cradle through 
the mother. One of his works is his Mother^ s 
School y which is in line with Froebel' s orreatest 



238 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

production, The Mother Play-songs, as well as 
in line with Pestalozzi's Mothers' Booh. 

Very stimulating and suggestive was this inter- 
course with Krause, as it began to turn his eyes 
toward his true destiny, the kindergarden. 
Already he has been moving a little in that direc- 
tion, but the sympathetic philosopher gave a 
push which never lost its momentum. Truly, 
epoch-making was Krause' s word now, quite like 
that of Gruner, when he said to Froebel, " Be a 
teacher." Also, Krause may have led Froebel 
to see more in the institutional life of man than 
he had before seen. 

The philosophy of Krause had already been 
profoundly consolatory to Froebel in his present 
mood. The basis of it was a theistic view of the 
world, placing a self-conscious God at the center, 
as the highest supreme unity of Spirit and 
Nature. Froebel' s immediate personal problem 
was to reconcile the crash of Keilhau with the 
divine government of the universe, to see in the 
obscuration, if not total evanishment, of his 
grand enterprise the hand, yea the command of 
Providence. 

So a little circle gathered round the two 
strangers from Keilhau, in the house of the 
Frankenbergs, a family living in the country 
near Gottingen, and fervent disciples of Krause 's 
philosophy. Also a young man named Hermann 
Von Leonhardi, afterwards distinguished as 



THE PBINCIPAL DETHRONED. 239 

Krause's most persistent and devoted disciple, 
was of the number who met and exchanged 
ideas in that quiet country-home of the sympa- 
thetic Frankenbergs, to whom Krause was the 
Prophet. 

But how about the lights of Gottingen, the 
Professors in the University? With two or three 
exceptions, they looked at the whole set askance, 
as crack-brained dreamers and enthusiasts. In- 
deed some of them ridiculed the new-comers, 
whose external appearance gave only too much 
ground for a sarcastic titter among those sleek, 
well-fed, well-stalled and well-groomed Profes- 
sors in the University. 

For just look at the leader, Froebel, as he 
walks down the street of the town, dressed in 
the old-German costume, with long coat swash- 
ing about his long legs ; he has no necktie ; long 
hair is parted in the middle and fluffed behind his 
ears, dangling partly down his back; note his 
deeply browned visage from his out-door life, not 
'' sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 
The rollicking students jeered, and the street 
urchin could not keep back a hoot. Middendorf 
too had the same costume, with the Keilhau long 
hair, and so enforced that lesson of antique 
rusticity given to the University of Gottingen. 

When Froebel entered the drawing-room and 
began to talk, the impression was not lessened on 
closer inspection. Friend and foe agree in one 



240 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

point at least upon Froebel, that he was the pos- 
sessor of a preternatural homeliness. A long, 
pointed, somewhat curved nose, whose hook 
would crook over the more with his smile ; enor- 
mous ears spreading out on each side of his head 
like a cabbage-leaf; low forehead, small eyes; 
his physiognomy is declared by one observer to 
resemble that of a Hindoo. (35) 

When he opened his mouth and began to talk, 
it was easy to see that his speech w^as not ele- 
gant, but uncombed, even brusque ; then it 
would fly oft* in a fit of ecstasy to regions where 
few if any could follow. He had a peculiar vo- 
cabulary not known to the Professors at Gottin- 
gen ; it was derived chiefly from what he had 
heard at Jena nearly thirty years before, and 
largely belonged to the nature-philosophy of 
Schelling. All this was coupled with no small 
display of self-conceit — surely a fantastic ap- 
pearance at Gottingen. 

Still here was the genius, the very genius of 
the education of the Future let loose among 
University Professors, whose vocation is to deal 
with the Past, or rather the echo of the Past. 
Great w^as the contrast, externally and internally ; 
a chasm lies between the two kinds of men, over 
w^hich no bridge has yet been built. But Krause 
was there, the two formed a point of union in a 
man whose followers both of them were in a 
sense, namely, Schelling. Each, however, pro- 



THE PRINCIPAL DETHBONED. 241 

tested in true German fashion that he had " his 
own philosophy." So Froebel does not become 
a disciple of Krause, nor Krause of Froebel, and 
neither will acknowledo^e Schellino; as master nor 
anybody else. 

VI. 

Helba the New Hope. 

The visit to Krause took place in the fall of 
1828, Froebel returned to Keilhau which was 
sinking deeper and deeper into debt and despair. 
But a new scheme appeared above the horizon, 
bringing with it a fresh crop of Hope. This was 
the projected institute of Helba, the plan of 
which was ma'de by Froebel, who sent out an 
announcement of the enterprise in early spring 
1829. 

It seems that the proposition did not originally 
come from Froebel or his people, but from the 
court of the Duke of Meiningen, whose personal 
physician. Dr. Hohebaum, had given special 
attention to the work at Keilhau and had inter- 
ceded with the Duke for the purpose of establish- 
ing a People's Educational Institute at Helba 
near Meiningen, of which Froebel was to be 
principal. Froebel was called into the Duke's 
presence, and an agreement was made by which 
the place known as Helba with thirty acres of 
land and with a yearly appropriation of 1000 

IG 



242 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

gulden (4-500 dollars) was to be devoted to 
purposes of education. 

Great was the joy which hailed Froebel on his 
return to Keilhau with this new scheme, which 
brouofht back fresh visions of food and of future 
usefulness to that little band now reduced almost 
to the starvation point. In fact it could not 
during the present year pay for what it ate. 
Hence the jubilation which saluted the bringer 
of the good news, who was by nature optimistic, 
and who probably colored his report with a 
certainty which the facts did not warrant. 

But just see ! Keilhau is to be the apex of a 
grand system of education supported by the 
State. No longer is it to pursue its solitary 
course in its secluded vale of Schaale ; it is to be- 
come public, yea truly institutional henceforth. /' 
For the plan includes the following four schools 
or departments : — 

1. An orphan nursery in which little children 
(three to seven years old) are to be cared for and 
developed. Note this as a prophecy of the 
kindergarden. 

2. An elementary school for older children, 
which was to employ some new methods in edu- 
cation. These two schools or departments were 
located at Helba, and were to make the start. 

3. A school for German art and industry was 
included in the plan, though it was to be carried 
out later. 



( 



THE PEINCIPAL DETHEONED. 243 

4. Finally came Keilhau, '* a school for higher 
knowledge," preparatory to the University. 
Thus Keilhau is placed at the apex of the 
system. 

Such was the brilliant new rainbow that sud- 
denly overarched the cloudy skies of Keilhau. 
Just in the nick of time does it appear, for, to 
tell the truth, we have this year (1829) only five 
pupils, who have in some mysterious way to sup- 
port four families belonging to the school, and 
apparently some outside teachers. Now we can 
all have work and bread again ; up spring our 
hearts, elastic with Hope. 

Let the reader scrutinize the Helba plan some- 
what closely, for it shows in certain respects a 
movement bevond Keilhau. The first thinor 
which draws the attention is the scheme for 
developing small children. Says Froebel in a 
letter to Barop, under the date of March 11, 
1828: *' The education and treatment of small 
children from the third to the seventh year has 
occupied me a long time." Evidently the first 
impulse goes back to Pestalozzi, whose Mothei^s^ 
Booh Froebel had studied with care while at 
Yverdon, in 1809. (See his Report to the Prin- 
cess Regent; also. Chap. I., Book II., of the 
present biography.) In the same letter to 
Barop, occurs the following passage: "I shall 
not call this institute a school, because it is not a 
school, and I do not wish the children to be 



244 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

schooled in it, but to be freely unfolded * * * 
the divine element is to be guarded and fostered 
as far as it is possible for human beings." This 
concerning Helba some nine years before the first 
kindergarden at Blankenburg ; no such institute 
for small children belonged to Keilhau. Such 
a forward step into his future work has Froebel 
here taken. (36) 

What was impelling him? Already we have 
noticed the influence of Pestalozzi, but that lay 
twenty years back. The direct impulse came 
from his stimulating correspondence and personal 
intercourse with Krause, the philosopher of Got- 
tingen, who just recently (1828) had pointed 
out to him the significance of the pedagogical 
writings of Comenius, and specially of the lat- 
ter 's Mother^ s School, in which the education of 
infants was strongly enforced. Froebel was un- 
doubtedly ready for the suggestion, which he 
starts at once to realizing practically at Helba. 

Another surprise awaits us in regard to the 
amount of constructive work which Froebel puts 
into his course of instruction. The materials 
which .he uses are paper, wood, wire, clay, with 
a great diversity of forms. He evidently has 
the idea that every human occupation can be edu- 
cative; the boy can be trained by a trade, and 
not simply to a trade. Through the fertile brain 
of Froebel seem to have passed all these modern 
schemes of education by means of some form of 



THE PBINCIPAL DETHBONED. 245 

hand-work. While I am writing this chapter 
(May, 1900) in Chicago town, here is laid before 
me the last new scheme in this same direction, 
running somehow thus : the humblest artisans 
are to be sought out and shown the evolution of 
their trade — and thus educated and elevated, 
not by some remote abstract study, but by the 
very thing which they are doing, in which and 
by which they live, for it, too, has a history as 
well as a state or a city. The poor woman, 
still plying her loom, can have her soul unfolded 
and uplifted by following the processes in the 
unfolding of her daily occupation. The school 
is not now to teach a trade, but the trade is to 
teach a school. Such is the idea already under- 
lying this project of Froebel, still in the course 
of fulfillment. 

Here Ave may see the psychical movement of 
education, as it lay in the plan of Froebel. 

First, the child must do or make something ; 
primarily he is Will, a productive being. 

Second, the child finds out through doing that 
he needs to know, and thus rises in him the desire 
of knowledge ; he must also be Intellect, a re- 
ceptive being. 

Third, the child finds that through knowing 
he can always do better; his Will must be 
laden with Intelligence, thus he can transcend 
limits and always be improving -^ a spiritual 
being. 



246 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Such is the project of Helba, prophetic ; it 
passes before us as a grand forecast of the 
future, purely imaginary, for it was never realized. 
But it suggests that the practical utilitarian labors 
of man, agriculture, carpentry, weaving, etc., be 
transformed into a means of education, and 
thereby prophesies many things, for instance, 
manual training and the occupations of the kin- 
derofarden. Education was once to be made use- 
f ul, but now the useful is to be turned back to its 
source and made educative. 

But what next? Jealousy began, to stir the 
hearts of the educational authorities of Meiningen 
at this new influence. The Duke had consulted 
Froebel about the best way of educating his only 
son and heir, and was told directly : ''Educate 
your boy with other boys." The Duke followed 
this sensible advice, which was contrary to the 
former method ; but Froebel incurred the enmity 
of the previous instructors, who naturally began 
to intrigue against the Helba scheme and its 
promoter. 

All the reports about Keilhau were diligently 
gathered and brought to the Duke. And what 
could he not hear? Imao^ine him listenino^ to a 
letter from Herzog, the demonic scourge of Keil- 
hau, now at Jena. What a story would the 
Froebel boys, the estranged nephews, tell about 
their uncle, if called on to testify? And the 



THE FBINCIPAL DETHBONED. 247 

busy plotters might even get a word from Madam 
Christoph Froebel living not far away from 
Meiningen. Again that old Nemesis is at work 
destroying the new hope of Froebel. And it 
succeeds, all Froebel' s thinking and planning for 
Helba during nearly two years come to nothing. 
The Duke begins to grow cool, to change the 
plan, to limit the number of pupils. Froebel, 
observing the Duke's change of manner and lack 
of confidence, and knowing only too well the 
reason, does not try to make any defense, but at 
once throws up the whole business and with- 
draws. 

Thus another vengeful blow is delivered by 
the Furies of the Family Froebel, and all Keil- 
hau sinks down reeling into a blacker despair 
than ever. That iridescent arch of Hope which 
spanned the Heavens with the bright name of 
Helba, festooned in all the colors of the rain- 
bow, has vanished into night, the darkest Keil- 
hau ever saw. It is reported that Froebel went 
almost crazy during these days ; he often stood 
dazed and speechless under the terrible strokes. 

The Duke, liberal and kind-hearted though he 
was, could not disentangle the diabolic farrago 
of calumny and intrigue, which netted him about 
on every side. What mortal could at that time? 
Many cannot now, looking through the perspec- 
tive of almost three-fourths of a century, so intri- 



248 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

cately woven of good and evil is this web of fatal- 
ities. Still we have to see Froebel even here in 
training for his future work. The Powers will 
no lono^cr let him rest at Keilhau, nor at Helba, 
nor in Thuringia, nor in Germany. Their decree 
is expatriation — he has not yet heard it, but soon 
will. 



CHAPTER FOURTH. 

EXPATRIATION. 

Every attempt on the part of Froebel to re-^ 
cover himself in Germany has failed. From the 
Helba project he has gone back to Keilhau, but 
he cannot stay there with nothing to do. It 
looks as if he would have to leave his native 
Thurinoia and o^o to a foreio^n land. Ill fortune 
or perchance Providence has seemingly barred 
every way at home; only one road is open, and 
that leads beyond the German border — but 
whither ? A new time of wanderins^ and uncer- 
tainty has set in, as at former periods of his 
career. Are the destinies takino- him in hand and 
preparing him, all unconscious, for the grand 
transition of his life into his new final vocation? 
At any rate one thing is certain : again the ques- 

(249) 



260 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

tion has risen with all intensity, '' What shall 
I do with myself now? " 

In this mood he resolves to pay a visit to 
Frankfort where he began his work of teaching 
about twenty -five years since. Thus he turns back 
the leaves of the book of life to that place and 
time at which his career as educator opens, taking 
a retrospect of the past and making an adjustment 
for the future. Back, back, to the starting- 
point, through a full quarter of a century, and 
cast the horoscope of life once more ; interrogate 
the oracle of thy destiny on the spot where it 
gave thee the first response ; listen to what it 
may say, perchance once more it will whisper in 
thine ear the divine word of direction. 

At Frankfort Froebel finds his old patroness 
and friend, Frau Von Holzhausen, whose boys he 
trained as private tutor, and took to Yverdon, the 
school of Pestalozzi in Switzerland. The two, 
it seems, had occasionally exchanged letters 
during all the intervening years, and his former 
pupils were his friends. Thus a sympathetic, 
encouraging echo comes to him out of the dis- 
tant past, out of the early days of his activity. 
Moreover, Gruner was still there and at work in 
his profession, at whose school Froebel began his 
pedagogical career. And this same Gruner was 
the man who voiced the oracle of life for Froe- 
bel, which has wrouoht and is still workino^ : " Be 
a teacher." Perchance the voice will again 



EXP A TBI A TION. 25 1 

speak the pivotal word in the present crisis. 
Such is Froebel's return upon his early begin- 
ing, to the very starting-point of his vocation, 
with which the present Book of his biography 
commences. 

Not purposed was all this, but rather the 
blind instinct of a new epoch of life, which 
must go back to its primeval sources. But 
who now crosses his path? As he unfolds his 
pedagogical principles one day, he has an eager 
listener, Xaver Schnyder Von AYartensee, a 
famous composer of music, a devotee of Natural 
Science, and a pupil of Pestalozzi, also a friend 
of Jean Paul Richter, author of Lev ana. At 
the house of Von Holzhausen this man hears 
Froebel, and is captivated, yea, he is electrified 
to the point of discipleship. Furthermore, he 
hears of Froebel's plan of a new school which 
is to complete the reform begun by Pestalozzi, 
and to give a fresh basis for all instruction. 
Schnyder soon discovers that Froebel is at pres- 
ent seeking a call, is indeed ready to start with 
something the very next day. Here, then, drops 
the oracular Avord from the mouth of Schnyder 
as if it were from Heaven : ' ' Go with me to 
Switzerland and take possession of my castle of 
Wartensee on the shore of Lake Sempach, and 
there open your school." (37) 

No sooner had the divine word fallen than 
Froebel recognized it to be the voice of the God, 



\ 



252 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

and prepared to obey on the spot. The two 
friends set out from Frankfort together, both of 
whom heard the summons. On July 31st they 
reached the castle of Wartensee, and two weeks 
later received from the authorities permission to 
start their new institute. 

Thus the great separation has taken place, from 
Keilhau, from Thuringia, from Germany itself — 
a separation which is indeed birth. Froebel has 
again gone into Switzerland, moving on his old 
track, yet with a new purpose, not now as pupil 
of Pestalozzi but as the successor and developer 
of the latter' s work. 

In 1831 this was, fifteen years he has been 
connected with Keilhau, which he must hence- 
forth quit and transcend, could he but look into 
the Sybilline leaves of the coming time. Separ- 
ated, indeed, yet for the purpose of a profounder 
connection ; hence he may well write of this Swiss 
journey in one of his letters as *' keeping the 
thread of my life unbroken and complete within 
itself" (see Poesche, Eng. Trans., p. 107). 
That is, the deeper thread of his life, visible only 
afterwards, not at the time ; for the outer thread 
was certainly snapped or rather snipped by re- 
morseless Atropos with her shears, that the new 
and far greater one might be spun by the Sisters 
three — which thread is now to be laid out before 
the reader. 



EXPATRIATION. 253 

I. 

Wartensee. 

Froebel is now in free Switzerland, a great 
contrast to the Germany which has shaken him 
off. An environment of freedom lies around the 
castle of Wartensee ; not far off is the battle- 
field of Sempach, the Swiss Marathon, in which a 
small number of hardy mountainers asserted their 
liberty in a conflict which is counted among the 
world's most memorable battles. It is the region 
of Tell whose legend bespeaks the character of 
the people who made it and who kept it alive. 
Yet its greatest embodiment was the work of a 
Weimar poet, Schiller, with whom Froebel was on 
many lines connected. 

The first note shows the change. Here we can 
have no Universal German Institute, though 
Froebel speaks only the German tongue, which 
remains the basic one in all his instruction. The 
Swiss people speak French and Italian as well as 
German, that is portions of them ; here is the 
meeting place of Teutonic and Romanic culture ; 
South, North, West — Italy, Germany, France 
inter Hnk and form a mighty international knot in 
the mountains of Switzerland. Hence education 
cannot be Germanized, but it can be Humanized 
on this spot ; the purely natural folk-spirit of Keil- 
hau and of former years must be made universal. 



254 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Here too the people rule ultimately; Froebel 
must now educate the people. So he is whirled 
back into Pestalozzi's tracks, upon Pestalozzi's 
own ground. Fifty years old yet he is starting 
on a new career. 

And not only Froebel, but all Keilhau, is to 
take this Swiss bath ere that school can be 
revived and rejuvenated. We shall see Barop, 
Middendorf, Langethal, not to speak of others, 
passing into this new world, and drinking in 
fresh life from its mountains. Keilhau is like- 
wise to have its separation and return, when it 
will blossom forth into a wonderful new pros- 
perity, greater than ever. 

It must be added that Switzerland itself was, 
on the whole, ready to receive these men and 
their message. Not without conflict, indeed, 
still they were not rejected. The government 
was at this time in enlightened hands, the author- 
ities welcomed all illumination. It was the 
period of the French Revolution of 1830, when 
the old Bourbons, obscurantists and reactronar- 
ies, had been driven out of France, and a new 
order had begun. The same breeze swept through 
the Swiss valleys and over its mountains, giving 
inspiration to the new-comer from Keilhau. 

Undoubtedly Froebel reproduced Keilhau in 
his school at Wartensee. What else could he 
do? He puts the same stress upon inner devel- 
opment through self -activity, and has the same 



< 



EXPATRIATION. 255 

general plan of study. Then there is also to be 
free development, and so the question of free- 
dom rises now in a free land. 

Just here lies the great lesson for Froebel and 
for Keilhau, the lesson of freedom. The con- 
tradiction must be solved ; the Swiss people and 
the Swiss government show liberty ruling 
through law, or institutional liberty. No 
longer freedom, as individual caprice on the 
one side, and despotic authority on the other, as 
was largely the case at Keilhau, and indeed in 
Germany itself ; order is not external and tyran- 
nical, but its very object is to secure freedom. 
And in the school there is to be prescription 
yet combined with true liberty. 

In the Swiss" state, perchance in the Swiss 
mountain air is the secret restorative which is to 
heal the inner rent which we see cleaving in 
twain the Education of Man, and which helped 
to undermine Keilhau. To such a spiritual at- 
mosphere have these men come and they must be 
made whole in it, recovering from their inner 
dualism ; they must then go back home, the entire 
set of them, must return to Germany with their 
new health, and impart it there to the extent of 
their ability. 

The Institute starts, Schnyder returns soon to 
Frankfort, the household is in charge of a young 
lady relative of his, Salesia. The opening is an- 
nounced in the Swiss journals, and the project is 



256 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

brought to public attention. But what means 
this sudden hostile noise of angry tongues? No 
sooner is the enterprise fairly launched, than a 
most violent and bitter attack is made in a Swiss 
newspaper against Froebel personally, assailing 
his character as a citizen, as an educator, and as 
a debt-payer. At first he thought of meeting 
these calumnies in a detailed explanation, and 
actually wrote an answer, but concluded not to 
publish it in full, but only the conclusion which 
declared tliat it would be '* humiliating, degrad- 
ing and disgraceful to deign even a word in 
reply." 

The reader of the preceding life will under- 
stand why Froebel felt, on perusing his own 
defense, that it would be better to keep silent. 
He would have to admit certain things and 
explain away certain other things, which a skillful 
adversary would certainly twist into a confirma- 
tion of the charges. Better, therefore, drop the 
whole matter, and push on the great work, the 
positive work of education, quietly letting the 
Furies of the past hiss out their venom, till they 
sink back into night whence they came. 

But who wrote the article? What was its 
source, its secret propelling motive? The writer 
referred to Dr. Carl Herzog in Jena as one of the 
vouchers, also to Schonbein, another Keilhau 
sore-head, not without cause, however. But is 
it not strange ! The Keilhau fiend has pursued 



EXPATBIATION. 2hl 

Froebel to Switzerland and is strikinor him there, 
after having helped smite Keilhau itself into the 
dust. Shortly afterwards a statement appeared 
which was signed by Herzog and which assailed 
the institute and also Froebel. Still the work 
went forward, though not with the expected suc- 
cess ; Keilhau had to contribute some means for 
its continuance. So the stroke had its effect, and 
the old Nemesis failed not in its power. 

Then came an inner conflict between Schnyder 
and Froebel. They were quite equal in authority, 
partners in fact. Trouble was certain to spring 
up sooner or later. The first serious difference 
arose in regard to answering the personal attack ; 
Schnyder demands that Froebel come forward 
with his proofs and annihilate the accuser. 
Whereupon Froebel writes to Schnyder a candid 
letter, giving his reasons for refusal. Evidently 
in that letter Schnyder heard of something which 
he had not before known. 

Still another difference between the two part- 
ners came to lis^ht. Froebel felt the lack of the 
woman's soul in Wartensee, which was a male 
affair. Schnyder' s female relative, Fraulein 
Salesia, had left the place in dissatisfaction, as 
she, too, missed the ministry of the woman in 
the work, and was apparently not able to supply 
it herself. Froebel applied to Keilhau, asking 
for Elise Froebel, the youngest of the Froebel 
girls, now some eighteen years old, but a trained 

17 



258 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

Keilhaii housekeeper, and able to introduce 
domestic order into that masculine excess of men 
and boys. To this arrangement Schnyder was 
again opposed, and Middendorf sought to pacify 
and persuade him by a long friendly letter. But 
the breach was plainly too wide, and some new 
step had to be taken. Schnyder' s distrust had 
been roused and fed by the insidious machinations 
of the Keilhau diabolus (reviler), who has 
already played such an important part in Froe- 
bel's life. 

So the avenging Nemesis has pursued Fred- 
erick Froebel into Switzerland, shouting its 
demonic outcries into the ears of all who will 
listen. That deed of his, after driving him out 
of Germany, is hounding him still in his place 
of refuge, and seemingly from it there is no 
escape. It environs him everywhere, as if it 
were the very atmosphere of himself, which he 
bears with him in his flight. 

But is there no release from this hellish pursuit? 
Yes, there is, and that is what thou, my reader, 
art specially to see and to take unto thyself ; 
there is escape even from the Furies of thine 
own deed. Froebel is now heroically putting 
them down throuo^h long; and wearisome com- 
bat; such is, indeed, the deeper phase of the 
present Swiss discipline, from which he will rise 
on this soil to his supreme act, the kindergarden. 
But not yet; let us return. 



EXPATBIATION. 259 

The Keilhau people were interested in the ex- 
periment at Wartensee, and resolved to send 
clear-headed, practical Barop to take a look into 
the situation there. Keilhau had little spare cash 
for traveling or for good clothes in which to 
make an appearance ; still the journey must be 
made. So young Barop sets out, with an old 
summer coat on his back, and a thread-bare 
frock-coat on his arm, and with ten thalers in his 
pocket, gaily driving his span of shoemaker's 
nags over the hills and through valleys towards 
Switzerland, where he indue time arrives. Com- 
ino^ to the neis^hborhood of Wartensee he asks 
some inhabitants about those new school teachers 
yonder in the castle ; the chief fact known of 
them seems to have been that they were heretics. 
Such is the little prelude sounding in his ears, 
which will turn to a deafenino^ and threateninoj 
hubbub, ere he gets back home to Keilhau. 

It was at once plain to Barop and to all con- 
cerned that Wartensee had to be given up. The 
castle was ill-fitted for a schoolhouse without im- 
portant alterations, which Schnyder refused to 
make or to permit. Then there were deeper rea- 
sons, as already indicated, chief of Avhich was 
the dual authority, which could no longer be 
tolerated. But whither are they to go now? 
Give up Switzerland and return to Keilhau, with 
mission unfulfilled? Not yet, not yet, say the 
governing Powers. 



260 THE LIFE OF FUOEBEL. 

They happened to be sitting in a tavern not far 
from Wartensee talking over their struggles, 
when three men present began to take a great 
interest in their conversation. These men said 
they were merchants from Willisau, a town not 
far off — evidently wide-awake citizens of a free 
community. The outcome of the matter was 
their invitation: '* Come over to our town, we 
want just' such a school." (38) 

Our friends did not think much of the little 
event, but those three men went home and stirred 
up their fellow-citizens, who responded at once. 
The result was twenty families of property united 
in a request to the teachers at Wartensee, having 
already obtained permission from the cantonal 
government and selected a buildino^ for the 
school, and provided forty pupils as a beginning. 
Another providential event dropping out of 
heaven just in the nick of time ; surely we can- 
not leave Switzerland, where the free-acting 
citizen can do such things. 

Accordingly Froebel takes a new step in his 
Swiss career, the transition to Willisau. Schny- 
der and his Wartensee have done their part, have 
drawn him out of Germany and Keilhau and set 
him down in Swiss air among the free Swiss 
mountains, and have even brought Keilhau to 
this fresh dip in the Swiss lakes. The people 
begin to call upon him and to support him ; the 
State or the municipality now comes to the 



EXPATBIATION. 261 

front; we pass from kingship and aristocracy to 
the repubKc as the bearer of the new educational 
Idea. 

II. 

Willisau. 

After a little more than one year's trial, the 
school passed from Wartensee to Willisau. 
Froebel himself meanwhile took a trip back to 
Keilhau, and even went as far as Berlin. But 
after a few months he returned to Switzerland, 
this time brins^inoj his wife. On the first of 
May, 1833, the pair arrived at Willisau, and the 
school was formally opened the next day. 
Barop was already on hand, having prepared 
matters for their reception. In its methods the 
new institute was patterned after Keilhau; in 
fact the preliminary circular joins the two to- 
gether by name, Willisau and Keilhau institutes, 
and is signed by Froebel as principal of both. 
Thus the institute with two heads passes away, 
or is somehow metamorphosed into one head for 
two institutes. 

But see what crosses his path at the town of 
Rudolstadt, as he is setting out from his Keilhau 
home on this last Swiss journey. He goes to the 
police office to get his pass, and whom does he 
meet there? His deeply estranged nephew, 
Julius Froebel, co-worker in hate with demonic 
Herzog. The nephew has likewise come for a 



262 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

pass to this same Switzerland, where he has ob- 
tained a position as teacher in a school at Zurich, 
not, of course, through the intercession of Uncle 
Frederick. The two glare at each other and sep- 
arate without one word of salutation, truly a 
prelude to those Furies who have followed the 
Family Froebel in its flight to the Swiss moun- 
tains, pursuing its members relentlessly as they 
did Orestes of old. Julius has been on a visit to 
his mother at Volkstadt, whom the Nemesis of 
injured Love seems to be avenging with such 
fierce strokes ; her the son will soon bring over 
to Switzerland, so that the diabolic situation at 
Keilhau will be exactly duplicated in that land, 
and the infernal powers of hate can keep their 
mill running, The two sides will be located near 
each other in neighboring cantons, one in Zurich 
and one in Lucerne. Vain is the flight from the 
Gods ; there was no intention on the part of 
Julius Froebel to pursue his uncle into Switzer- 
land, but a good position was offered him just 
there and just at that time, which position his 
necessities required him to accept. So he is sud- 
denly whirled from distant Berlin to Swiss Zurich 
by the Powers, and set down as it were face to face 
with his uncle, of whose wrongs to his family he 
deems himself the avenger. (39) 

But let us next cast our look upon Frederick 
Froebel, always the central figure in this varied 
picture of human life. Untiring in his activity 



EXP A TBI A TION. 263 

at the present time, he meets his lot as if seekino- 
to ward off or to deaden the blows of destiny 
through work, incessant work, in whose very 
oblivion the harassed soul often finds its peace. 
Self -forgetful labor is the grand releaser from 
ills, giving to the hunted human heart a fresh 
plunge into the fountain of Lethe, especially 
when it is done for a great Idea. So Froebel 
labors at his lofty task unremittingly, being prin- 
cipal of two schools now, and soon of three. 

It is well to mark at this point the difference 
between Keilhau and Willisau. The Swiss school 
was not called into existence by the fiat of Fred- 
erick Froebel, but by a body of citizens of a free 
community. Thus the institutional setting of the 
two enterprises is wholly different, in fact oppo- 
site — the one being autocratic and the other 
democratic. It is true that Froebel is autocrat in 
his school, still he is called by the people to his 
position and authority; what he had done is 
through their will. Quite a lesson is this for the 
absolutist Froebel, he too is going to school at 
Willisau. And Barop is there, learning the 
same lesson which he will take back to Keilhau 
with great profit to himself and to Ms school. 
Furthermore we shall see that all the other lead- 
ing: instructors at Keilhau will come to this Swiss 
fountain and drink of its waters. 

But now for the other side, since there is a 
new devil assailing this young paradise at Wil- 



264 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

lisau. The people of this portion of Switzerland 
have in themselves still the bitter conflict coming 
down from the time of the Reformation, they are 
divided into Catholics and Protestants. So the 
grand religious conflict of modern Europe rises 
and rasres around the little school at Willisau, 
even to the point of endangering the lives of 
the teachers. The Catholic clergy, always claim- 
ing the right of educational control, grew ex- 
tremely aggressive ; a Capuchin monk making a 
violent speech to an inflammable audience on a 
public occasion, came near precipitating a riot. 
Barop relates that he was once in a public resort 
recognized by a priest as one of the teachers, and 
was then and there charged with heresy. But 
he crushed his adversary with the question : 
" Tell me, was Jesus Christ a Protestant or a 
Catholic?" Whereupon his audience actually 
applauded him. 

Still the threats continued and the danger did 
not pass away. Froebel himself was once warned 
against going out on a certain road by a friendly 
old peasant: "Don't do it, they are going to 
kill you." No more walks over the mountains at 
present; such was the admonition of friends, who 
knew the intensity of the religious fury. Barop 
was sent to the authorities of the canton to ask 
for protection. They were friendly, still some- 
thing had to be done to allay the excitement. 

Now comes forward Edward Pfyffer, mayor of 



EXPATRIATION, 265 

the canton (Lncerne), a Swiss loving both light 
and liberty, and speaks the fitting word to Barop, 
saying, " Win the people." But how? '* Get 
yourself ready and have a public examination ; 
invite" everybody to see what you are doing." 
The advice w^as followed, the announcement was 
carried by the press through all Switzerland ; on 
the appointed day from far and near the people 
flocked to Willisau ; even delegates were sent 
from some of the neigliboring cantons, such as 
Bern and Zurich, to report the result. A mighty 
popular outpouring to witness the great struggle 
between the powers of Light and Darkness 
f ouo-ht over ao^ain in the little town of Willisau : 
no wonder the people were interested, for it was 
just their cause. 

Early in the morning at 7 o'clock the exami- 
nation began, and lasted till 7 in the evening, 
varied wdth games of the boys, and closing with 
gymnastic exercises. A complete triumph : the 
hio^h officials of the canton in council made 
speeches of warm commendation, especially 
Edw^ard Pfyffer could rejoice, he who had uttered 
the pivotal word: ''Win the people," w^hich 
little breath of vocal air divinely sent and 
obeyed, was the source of the victory. The 
educators were granted certain privileges, and 
then came the tag-end of a petty revenge : the 
Capuchin who had made the inflammatory 
speech w^as ordered by the authorities to quit the 



266 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

canton. But why not let the poor devil of a 
monk stay where he, too, may learn something! 

Such was Froebel's appeal to the people, from 
whom, indeed, he was learning more than he ever 
tauirht, much as this was. Not now has he to 
seek the favor of the King or Duke or other 
potentate, that he may help his fellow-man, but 
he goes directly to the latter, who is to determine 
his own Avelfare, and to employ the means for his 
own development. A people, free, self-deter- 
mined, is here standing in the background of his 
work, and great is the lesson. For he must be- 
gin to feel the difference between individual or 
capricious freedom, which he has hitherto known, 
and institutional or universal freedom, ordered 
and organized, which he is now getting to know. 

And now Barop, who has been the leading 
spirit in the stirring events for many months, 
feels that his mission is ended, and that he must 
return home to Keilhau. He longs to clasp to 
his bosom his first-born, that baby boy of 
his, now a year old, whom he has never seen. 
Then a deeper plan is fermenting in his brain : 
he believes he can now rejuvenate Keilhau. 
From his Swiss experiences he certainly carries 
back an important lesson. Soon Middendorf and 
Langethal will go to Froebel in Switzerland, in 
fact they cannot stay away from him ; then 
Barop will quietly but firmly seize the reins at 
Keilhau and turn it back to prosperity. Quite 



EXP A TBI A TION. 267 

secretly must the thing be done ; let Froebel re- 
tain the name of principal, if he chooses ; his idea 
will rule still, but not his administration. So 
Barop goes back to Keilhau and there builds a 
kind of fortress or place of refuge, which is 
destined to play a very important part in Froe- 
bel' s future work. 

In the place of Barop, Middendorf comes to 
Willisau, bringing with him Elise Froebel, young- 
est of the Froebel girls. No great sum of money 
flows into the treasury, as the priests still keep 
up their secret machination and do all in their 
power to deter parents from sending their chil- 
dren to the school. Middendorf will stay in 
Switzerland four years without once seeing wife 
and little ones. He deemed himself a sentinel 
doing duty at a dangerous post for the Idea; 
he could not think of deserting it. Then he loved 
Froebel personally above all others ; sufficient it 
was just to be with him, and to share his trials, 
which were indeed many. For in addition to the 
religious conflict the old calumnies continued, 
which now furnish powder to the church fanatics 
to be used against Froebel and his associates, 
the magazine of maUgnity being just over yon- 
der at Zurich. 

Already the cantonal government of Bern, the 
most enlightened of the Swiss cantons, had its 
eye upon Froebel and his work. As soon as the 
school at Willisau was fairly established, Bern 



268 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

sends five young men as normal students to Froe- 
bel at Willisau. This was in 1833. The next 
year he is invited to conduct a training chiss at 
^ Burgdorf (Canton Bern), which ran up to sixty 
pupils. He returned to Willisau at its con- 
clusion, but the next year an offer was made 
whereby he removed permanently to Burgdorf 
(1835). Leaving Middendorf in charge at 
Willisau, he with his wife makes the third Swiss 
change, Langethal and wife going with him, they 
having meantime arrived from Keilhau, which is 
taking a complete and prolonged Swiss baptism 
in the persons of its leading instructors. 

Thus Froebel passes from the Canton Lucerne 
with its bitter religious dualism, to the Canton 
Bern, where he finds peace and leisure to unfold 
his coming thought. A new environment, and a 
new stage in his life, of which the reader should 
carefully note the results, since here can be traced 
the most important of all Froebel' s transitions. 

III. 

Burgdorf. 

The little town lies in the valley of a small 
river called the Emme, which divides into many 
little channels turning many millwheels along its 
course. Above lie the lofty summits of the 
Bernese Oberland,' looking down upon the smil- 
ing valley with its gardens and cultivated fields. 



EXPATBIATION. 269 

The giants, Eiger, Jungfrau, and Schreckhorn, 
tower in the distance; Such was the setting of 
Nature for Froebel's new activity, in which he 
seemed very happy. An exalted mood took 
possession of him, an inner elevation correspond- 
ing with the mountains, for he was not Aveighed 
down by the conflict which seemed to spring out 
of them over in Lucerne. An inner creative up- 
heaval like that of the colossal scenery about 
him starts in his soul and brings forth a new 
epoch. 

Buro:dorf has, too, its educational suo-orestion, 
being: associated with the name and work of 
Pestalozzi, who began here his reform of elemen- 
tary instruction. Thus Froebel is connected 
through the locality with the great Swiss educa- 
tor, of whom he is to be the greatest successor. 
Already, at Yverdon, there was an interlinking 
of their careers. Froebel, however, has passed 
beyond Pestalozzi' s object-lesson into the work 
of the self -active will ; he has made the pupil not 
only a receiver of the world but a creator of it, 
adding; action to sensation. But now Froebel is 
to take a step further, he is to reach back of the 
school and prepare for that ; the little child is to 
be wheeled into the line of the educational move- 
ment of his race. All this is seething mightily 
in Froebel at Burgdorf . 

He is put in charge of little children for the 
first time; in 1835 he is appointed director of 



270 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

^' the orphanage at Burgdorf , embracing orphans 
[ of the ages of four to six years. ' Here, then, is 
the grand new opportunity presenting itself to 
him at the right moment. Coupled with the 
orphanage is a kind of Normal School for the 
teachers of Canton Bern, who are given a three 
months' furlough every two years in order to 
receive professional instruction under Froebel. 

The present period may be regarded as the 
highest point of his active life. He is now the 
head of three educational institutions, at Keilhau, 
at WilKsau, and at Burgdorf. Through his posi- 
tion he was one of the authorities of the State, 
a member of the Bernese government; never 
before or afterward did he hold such a place in 
the political order. 

But what has become of the hostile Powers, 
which seem to keep pace with his very existence? 
Have they ceased pursuit? Now comes the 
curious fact that the entire family of the Froebel 
boys with their mother have settled in Switzer- 
land. Their separation from Keilhau has been 
already noted, and their deep hostility to uncle 
Frederick. In the beginning of 1833 Julius, 
the eldest, obtained the position of teacher in the 
Gymnasium of Zurich, and later he rose to a 
professorship in the University of that city. He 
was a mineralogist, developing quite on the lines 
of his hated uncle ; also geography and map- 
making were his specialties, the product of his 



EXPATRIATION. 271 

Keilhau training and rambles. Then came his 
second brother, Carl Froebel, who obtained a 
position as teacher of English in the Industrial 
School. The youngest brother came, too, Theo- 
dore, and was a gardener in Zurich. Finally the 
mother and sister were brought from Germany, 
and so the whole family was reunited in Zurich 
as in the early days of Keilhau. 

And Frederick Froebel' s Keilhau people were 
comino^ at the same time to the neiofhboring: 
Canton Lucerne, to Wartensee and Willisau. 
But there was no intercourse ; both sides seem to 
have been lifted out of the old territory and set 
down in the new. Herzos^ himself returned home 
to Switzerland later as Professor. The former 
attacks were kept up, but Froebel seems not to 
have been much troubled by them at Burgdorf . 
The Canton Bern, whose official he was, held his 
work in high esteem , refusing to listen to detrac- 
tion. But Middendorf at Willisau had the burden 
of the battle, which required continued watch- 
fulness. Nor are the old enemies of Keilhau in- 
active over in Germany, though Barop's tact and 
administrative ability are bringing forth the 
second great flowerino^ of the school. 

Meanwhile Froebel has become intensely inter- 
ested in the little orphans at Burgdorf from 
four to six years old. They occupy his thoughts 
and rouse his creative genius. He sees that these 
children must be developed from within ; knowl- 



272 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

edge is not to be hammered into their heads from 
the outside. He already grasps the function of 
play in their development ; he exercises them in 
games, in songs, in bodily movements, in model- 
ing with clay and sand ; he also employs the 
story, the fable, the fairy-tale. In one sense all 
these things are not new to him; they occur in 
his programme of Helba, and he had made use of 
them long before at Keilhau. But the problem 
of their application to the little children is new, 
and just that is his labor. Something is want- 
ing, something which gives him no rest — what 
is it? 

Froebel has not yet seen the inner connection 
of his games and his materials of play, and hence 
he cannot order them into an educational system . 
Now, this inner connection is the deepest, most 
compelling principle of his own soul, as well as 
the fundamental law of all education. As lono^ 
as it is absent there can be no adequate educative 
means for these children, and he himself can 
have no peace. Where is the germ, the organ- 
izing center of all these diverse, distracted occu- 
pations? The problem he carries about with 
him everywhere, it haunts him in his walks, per- 
chance in his dreams ; it becomes his ghostly 
counterpart, eternally pursuing him with its 
shadow. 

One day he takes his walk through the fields, 
with that spectre of his thought flitting before 



EXPATBIATION. 273 

and around him, possibly stopping him now and 
then on his path. Behold, what is yonder? 
Children playing ball in the meadow. He stops 
and looks ; that ball-play enters his fermenting 
spirit and unites with his struggling thought, 
wiiereby a new idea is born. We may hear him 
suddenly exclaim within : "I have it ! The ball 
is the child's first plaything, out of which 
unfolds the cube, which is the second! " Thus 
he has seized the creative germ of the kinder- 
garden, the inner central starting-point of the 
whole system of Play -gifts. Herewith Froebel 
the schoolmaster has vanished, and Froebel the 
kinder gar dner is born. 



18 



Book Zhixb, 






If we cast a look back at the preceding Book 
(the second) and grasp its total sweep, we shall 
see it as a whole to mean the evolution of the 
schoolmaster Froebel into the kindergardner 
Froebel. Startinoj at Frankfort with Gruner's 
winged words, "Be a teacher," he has gone 
through manifold pedagogic stages — subordinate 
instructor, tutor, normal student under Pestalozzi, 
till he becomes principal at Keilhau, enthroned, 
dethroned, expatriated — assuredly a man of 
divers destinies. The whole, however, has been 
his trainins^ till he be born a.kindero^ardner, and 
therewith the kindergarden itself be born. 
(274) 



THE KINDERGABDNER FROEBEL. 275 

So we take the bearing of what has gone be- 
fore us. Keilhau was the mighty discipline of 
Frederick Froebel for brino^inoj tlie man out of his 
inadequate view of life and of the school in order 
that he become the founder of the new education. 
When Keilhau has done its work for him, it slips 
out of his hands in spite of all his efforts to hold 
it fast. If Keilhau had been a success we had 
never had the kindergarden ; unless Froebel had 
been scourged by misfortune and disciplined by 
failure, he could not have done his later work. 
A castigation of the Gods it was till he performed 
his allotted task in the world, which was not 
merely to establish a boy's school at Keilhau, but 
to found the kindergarden. With stripes he 
goes forth from his cherished institution after 
many years' labor over it — a bitter parting. 
Not is he to return till he has the New Idea (the 
kindergarden) in his head and is ready to devote 
himself to realizing that and that alone. When 
he has finished his apprenticeship in Switzerland, 
he will get back to Keilhau once more and his 
beloved Thuringia — whereof the coming Book 
will furnish the record. 

Still Keilhau has its marvelous glory, even 
through failure. Barop will take up the school 
after Froebel, will heal its inner trouble and make 
it a prosperous enterprise. And yet Keilhau a 
success under Barop, is 'not for a moment to be 



276 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

compared with Kcilhau a failure under Froe- 
bel. With the best intention, very few of us 
will ever care very much for successful Keilhau. 
There was a just ground for its disintegration; 
the suspicion against it on the part of the estab- 
lished authority was not wholly without founda- 
tion. Still it performed its task and will forever 
have its place in the history of education ; it broke 
a path out of the old training of the child into 
the new, in spite of, possibly by virtue of, its 
faults. 

Thus Froebel enters upon what we have called 
the third Period in the great total sweep of his 
life ; the third and last it is, continuing some six- 
teen years or more, to the end of his days. If 
we should seek to express the supreme psychical 
fact of this Period, we would say that it shows 
Froebel' s Return, his going back to his begin- 
ning, and his uniting that with his ending. 
Thus he rounds out his terrestrial existence into 
a complete Whole. 

It is curious to note that this Return of Froe- 
bel is both outer and inner, it sweeps through 
Space, Time and Spirit. There is the external 
spatial Return to Germany, to Thuringia, yea, to 
Keilhau ; then there is the deeper, temporal Re- 
turn to his childhood and to his idealized mother ; 
finally there is the spiritual Return to the primal 
source of all human development, *' to the foun- 



THE KINDEBGABDNER FBOEBEL. ^11 

tain-head of the education of mankind," to the 
race-child, as it were, for a new training. Froe- 
bel himself was aware of this profound spiritual 
cycle in his life, and proclaims his consciousness 
of it, when he was nearly sixty years old, in the 
following Avords : *' After progressing through 
the vast orbit of almost two generations, I have 
been carried round to the point of commence- 
ment, to the fountain-head of the education of 
mankind, but with the significant addition of a 
full consciousness of my task." (Letter to 
Madam Schmidt, under date of March 21st, 
1841, in Poesche, Eng. Trans., p. 111.) 

The third Period has, accordingly, one main 
underlying idea and purpose — the kindergar- 
den, which works through it and determines it at 
every point. Moreover, we can distinguish three 
chief stages in its movement: the conception, 
the realization, and the propagation of the kin- 
dergarden, each of which will make a chapter of 
the forthcoming third Book. 

As already indicated, the transition into the 
present Period takes place at Burgdorf, which 
thus has two sides ; or we may say that there 
are two Burgdorf s in this biography of Froebel, 
one before and one during his conception of the 
kindergarden, dividing that little town just in the 
heart of it forevermore. 

So let us again take courage, my patient 



278 



THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 



reader, and buckle down to this last stretch of 
our narrative, which contains the real end and 
aim of this whole writing, without which, indeed, 
the present Life of Froebel would never have 
been composed, as having little or no meaning 
for the great future, and which ought to be the 
most interesting and profitable part to thee of all 
this biography. 



CHAPTER FIRST. 

THE KINDERGARDEN CONCEIVED. 

In the summer of 1835 Froebel with his wife 
settled at Buro^dorf . The previous year he had 
given there a normal course for Swiss teachers, 
but after it was over he returned to Willisau. 
At the mentioned time, however, he removed 
permanently to his new position, which was that 
of director of the orphanage at Burgdorf . 

The present year (1835-6) was doubtless the 
important year of his life in its creative aspect. 
His greatest thought opened and came to bloom ; 
he seems to have been in a kind of continuous 
productive ecstasy. His writings during this 
period have a peculiar note, prophetic and far- 
reaching, yet often hazy and uncertain of mean- 
ing; his very soul became pregnant with a 

(279) 



280 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

universe which struggled within him for birth, 
but which he could not fully somehow utter — 
without form it largely was, but by no means 
void. 

He has been four years in Switzerland, years 
full of discipline and instruction ; one more year 
he must serve at Burgdorf , when the Swiss ap- 
prenticeship will end. He will give up his situ- 
ation in an established order, which hampers 
him, and will devote himself fully and freely to 
the new-born Idea. No more school work, no 
more normal training ; he has made the transi- 
tion into his new vocation. To be sure there is 
also an external cause driving him from Switzer- 
land, the sickness of his wife ; but this cause is 
only the outer impact into his inner destiny. 

Still, before the great return is made to Keil- 
hau and to Germany, we must see what he is going 
to take back with him; we must consider the 
Conception of the Kindergarden, as it rose in his 
mind at Burgdorf among the orphans. 

I. 

The Child's First Play-Gift. 

Already we have noticed the effect upon Froe- 
bel when he once saw some children playing ball 
at Burgdorf. A very common, indeed, trivial 
event, yet it bore to him the message of the God ; 
hundreds of times he had seen and done the 



THE KINDEBGABDEN CONCEIVED. 281 

same act without hearing any divine voice. But 
now he is ready, yea, is waiting for, and uncon- 
sciously praying for the supernal appearance, 
when just before him it stands and speaks to him 
the providential word at the right moment. So 
with Homeric eyes we may behold the God out- 
side coming down from Olympus (or from yon- 
der Schreckhorn towering in the distance above 
Burgdorf ) and responding to the God inside that 
tall, spare man who has stopped along the road 
to look at children playing ball in the meadow. 
Such was the small occurrence which Froebel 
himself has indicated as the birth-point of the 
idea of the kindergarden Play-gifts, which on 
the spot flashed through his brain, if not an 
organized system, at least an organizing prin- 
ciple. Yet much had to be prepared ere such a 
world-creating flash could produce its result. 

The meaning of the Sphere or Ball had been 
a matter over which he had long brooded. At 
the University of Gottingen (1811) he had re- 
garded it as a kind of central or creative prin-. 
ciple of the Cosmos. Later, atlveilhau, he notes 
its educative value in his xipliorisms, and he 
couples it with the Cube genetically in the Edu- 
cation of Man (1826). Already he had em- 
ployed both these forms as outer symbols 
to unfold the inner spirit, or Ego. But 
when he saw these children playing ball, 
some point in the game, some word or act 



282 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

waked his sleeping genius (as old Ulysses 
was once roused from his slumber by the ball- 
play of Nausicaa's maidens), and at once he 
spake to himself : ' ' There ! I see it ! That is 
just what I have been long in search of. I shall 
now employ Ball and Cube as educative play- 
things for the little child, for my orphans. I 
shall put them together as one process or one 
Play-gift ; out of this I see developing a whole 
series of forms, through Avhich the child playing, 
will enter the creative workshop of Nature her- 
self, and thus unfold into his spiritual inherit- 
ance." 

Such was Froebel's first conception or genetic 
intuition of his Originative Play-gift (usually 
called his second Gift), which is the very germ 
and creative source whence flows the whole 
series of his Play -gifts, which constitute the 
center of the kindergarden system. Out of the 
Sphere is evolved the Cube as its opposite and 
outer counterpart; to these two main forms 
(Sphere and Cube) will be added the third (the 
Cylinder) in the course of time. The Originative 
Play-gift we call it, as the original and foun- 
tain-head of all the so-called Gifts and Occu- 
pations, and it is the central breast- work of the 
kindergarden fortress. 

Froebel has now gotten his starting-point 
from which he can beo^in to arrans^e the little 
world of materials already gathered by him. 



THE KINDEBGARDEN CONCEIVED. 283 

Out of this mass, more or less chaotic in his 
soul, the divine fiat of the Cosmos has been 
heard : Let there be order. And also the order- 
ing principle has been revealed, so that the work 
of construction may begin. (40) 

The Play -gift having been thus conceived, he 
is at the same time driven to another kindred 
conception, destined to be of vast significance in 
his system. 

II. 

Life's Renewal — The Play-song. 

In these autumnal days at Burgdorf , probably 
on account of the incessant workins: and ferment- 
ing of his new conception, Froebel seems to have 
fallen into a kind of frenzy of productive energy. 
The fit lasted through the holidays and reached 
over into the spring of 1836 apparently, and it 
manifests itself especially in a document of his 
which belongs to the early days of the new year 
and bears the title: " The year 1836 demands a 
renewal of life." In this composition Froebel 
speaks like a man intoxicated with his own crea- 
tive thouo^ht. The motive of the writins: lies 
persistently hidden, yet always with an outlook 
upon some event which is happening or is ex- 
pected to happen, in the fullness of time. 

The central fact with him is the -Family, as it 
manifests itself in the mother and child. This 
fact he contemplates in a kind of adoration, and 



284 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

repeatedly cou}>les it with the Madonna and the 
Christ-child. Various incidents of the sacred 
story — the Annunciation, the Lily, the Holy 
Family — are interwoven in his writings of the 
Burgdorf period. He shows often a vein of mys- 
ticism and ecstasy, which recalls the medieval 
devotee of the Blessed Virgin. 

Some occurrence in life has roused his emo- 
tional nature in its deepest depths, directing and 
coloring all his thoughts. An intimate, personal 
throb of the heart we feel in his dark allusions ; 
though we know not the cause, we respond to 
the secret thrill. 

To this mood of Froebel at this time we ascribe 
the first germ, in fact the very conception of the 
Mother Play-song, which puts the mother and 
child at the center of a strand scheme of education. 
A new spiritual development of humanity is the 
object. Only the germ now it is, not yet un- 
folded by any means ; some five years must pass 
ere this primordial conception can fully realize 
itself. 

It is true that Froebel has had much antece- 
dent preparation for creating just this Mother 
Play-song. Comenius and Pestalozzi before 
him, had placed the mother at the center of 
domestic education. Then at Keilhau and else- 
where, he ha^i gathered a good deal of material 
from the folk-lore of his people, which is m due 



I 



THE KINDEnaAUDEN CONCEIVED, 285 

time to be wrought over into the Mother Play- 
song. 

Still, there was needed the mighty creative im- 
pulse roused to its full energy in the soul ere the 
man could start the germinal thought which was 
to unfold into the Mother Play-song. This hap- 
pened at Burgdorf , in 1835-6. It is no wonder 
that Froebel refers to the year 1835 as the most 
remarkable in the history of his life — veritably 
his annus mirahilis. In Burg^dorf he reaches the 
highest point of his purely creative power, for 
here he produces the Play -gift and the Play-song, 
to which his life heretofore has gradually 
ascended, and which his life afterwards will 
unfold and " propagate. So he now becomes 
Froebel the kinder o-ardner, evolving: out of and 
sloufi^hino^ off Froebel the schoolmaster. 

The book of Mother Play-songs was the favor- 
ite of Madam Henriette Froebel, who wrote some 
of its verses and took a great interest in its prog- 
ress up to the time of her death. Froebel him- 
self regarded it as a kind of monument to her, 
and so spoke of it to the end of his days. It 
was indeed her book, very intimately connected 
with her life and experience. 

Thus the Play-song of the mother and child, 
sister of the Plav-ii'ift in the kindersrarden fam- 
ily, is born at Burgdorf during tliis fertile year, 
truly the highest genetic epoch of Froebel' s 
entire career. (41) 



286 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

III. 

What Shall I Do With It? 

The grand conception is born in his mind ; the 
next question is, What shall I do with it? 
Whither shall I go to realize it? He could not 
see the means in Switzerland amid the varied 
duties of his position ; he wished to be free of 
his routine in order to carry out unhindered his 
new plan. Moreover, the school, as such, had 
become a burden to him, and for children of 
school-age he had largely lost his interest; he 
was absorbed in infancy, the period before 
school-age, and its educational demands. The 
schoolmaster has quite vanished. So he can 
no longer stay in Burgdorf, or even in Swit- 
zerland; the Swiss epoch of his life has given 
its discipline, and come to an end. 

The later portion of his essay on the '* Re- 
newal of Life ' ' speaks of emigration as a part 
of his scheme. He had already passed through 
a stage of emio^ration when he went from Ger- 
many over into Switzerland. The broadening 
effect, the restorative power of such a step is 
present to his mind. He sees the need and the 
significance of separation from home and coun- 
try — for a time at least — that estrangement 
through which the human soul has to pass in 
order to reach its higher self, its greater destiny. 

The country to which he thinks of emigrating 



TEE KINDEBGABDEN CONCEIVED. 287 

is North America, where is a new land, a new ^ 
world, fit home for the new Idea. The social 
and political fixity of aged Europe is not favor- 
able to progress ; the conventional, the estab- 
lished, the transmitted, is too powerful; the 
f ormable element in man has become crystallized 
in that old world. 

Such was his first impulse, giving way to his 
impatience, perchance to his former feeling 
against his land's institutions and law, against 
the established order in general. But this is 
just what he is to recover from by his Swiss ex- 
perience ; the old idea of freedom as caprice is 
to be supplanted by the new idea of ordered 
freedom. Therefore his true movement is not 
to flee from the established but to return to it, 
to become reconciled with it, and then to trans- 
form it, in fine to inoculate the old stock with 
the fresh germ, with the new Idea. The going 
to America would have been a further and a 
deeper flight from his institutional world than 
the going to Switzerland. Not in that direction 
lies his true development ; he must now return. 

Then Froebel was a German, speaking the 
German tongue alone ; he could never have had 
a ready vehicle of communication with Aiiglo- 
Saxon peoples. Also he had not their social 
background, he did not know their folk-spirit as 
he did that of his native land. We hold, there- 
fore, that it was a wise thing that he did not 



288 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

carry out liis purpose of coming to the United 
States. Only a deeper estrangement, from 
which he could hardly have recovered, would 
have been caused in his spirit; whereas he now 
is ready to heal the old one by a return and recon- 
ciliation with his country. 

Still it is curious to note how he always thought 
of America when German conditions became too 
unfriendly or oppressive. In the Thirties many 
cultivated Germans emigrated to the Mississippi 
Valley, their descendants are still found in Illi- 
nois and Missouri. Froebel felt the same spirit. 
Then after the political upheaval of 1848, 
there was another grand German hegira to the 
United States, of which we again find echoes in 
Froebel. Finally when the great blow fell upon 
him, the suppression of kindergardens by Prus- 
sia, he thought for the last time about emigrating 
to America, when he was in his 70th year, and in 
the same year he died. 

So the scheme of emigration floats before him 
entrancingly at Burgdorf, and lures him across 
the ocean. But he finally comes to himself and 
says: " Here or nowhere is America," with one 
of Goethe's characters in Wilhelm Meister. The 
illness of his wife also determines him to leave 
his Swiss exile for home. 

Accordingly the next step is the Eeturn, an 
outer spatial Return to Fatherland, which, how- 
ever, has its inner spiritual counterpart in the 



THE KINDEBGABDEN CONCEIVED. 289 

Return to his own childhood, yea to the child- 
hood of the Race, the fountain-head of all educa- 
tion. Bearing in his brain and in his heart those 
two young Conceptions of his, the Play-gift and 
the Play-song, behold him setting out once more 
on a new career. 

IV. 

Return to Germany. 

When the warm days of 1836 had come, and 
traveling was a delight, Froebel \vith his wife 
quit Switzerland forever and turned his face to- 
ward Germany. In June we find him already at 
Berlin, where he staved three months, arrano^ing: 
matters in reference to the estate of his wife, 
whose mother had recently died. AVhile he is 
detained on this business, his thoughts are 
deeply occupied with his new work. He develops 
more fully his fundamental principle, and puts 
his materials into a more complete shape ; he 
composes what may be called his first kindergar- 
den essays, though he must have begun writing 
down his reflections on the same topic at Burg- 
dorf. 

The chief object of interest to him at Berlin 
was the day-nurseries, in which little children 
were cared for. This was along the line of his 
present absorbing thought, and so he looked into 
the matter with ffreat attention. Somethino; of 
the kind had been started in Berlin as far back as 

19 



290 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

1819. The purpose of the day-nursery (c?Yc7ze) 
was mainly to attend to children whose mothers 
had gone out to work for the day; it was a 
benevolent institution, not educational, and 
usually more benevolent to the parent than to 
the child. 

There is no doubt that Froebel through his 
present experience was led to assert stoutly that 
his new institution was not charitable, but educa- 
tive, not merely for the children of the poor, 
but for all, rich and poor; it was universal. 
Such was the distinction which he now made and 
held to firmly afterwards. His games, gifts, oc- 
cupations, are to train the child,, not merely to 
amuse him ; their very essence is their adaptation 
to unfold his spirit. 

It is true that Froebel had precursors in this 
idea. There was Oberlin, the so-called apostle 
of Steinthal, who established in 1779 the first in- 
fant home ; then came the work of the Scotch 
weaver, James Buchanan, with his infant schools, 
which spread throughout Great Britain, of which 
the first started in 1816 at New Lanark, under 
the auspices of Owen. This infant school had 
also the idea of discipline and training, and it 
employed games and songs, but in no sense did 
it possess the ordered instrumentalities of Froe- 
bel. So we see that the kindergarden is the 
flowering of a thought which was already germi- 



THE KINDI£RQAEDEN CONCEIVED. 291 

nating in the time, and was shooting buds in a 
number of phices over Europe. 

In Berlin another question Avas anxiously dis- 
cussed by Froebel : Where shall I plant the new 
institution? In Germany, certainly, but at what 
point? Berlin was considered, but there he had 
no support ; in fact, he felt no great congeniality 
with the place ; he was not a Prussian, and he 
could not forget the fact that Prussia had treated 
Keilhau with suspicion and worried the Duke of 
Meiningen about its supposed demagogic tenden- 
cies. Then Prussia and Switzerland are quite 
the opposites of each other, politically as well as 
territorially; they represent the extremes, autoc- 
racy and democracy, and Froebel took the mid- 
dle ground. That located him in his beloved 
Thuringia, between South and North, and joy- 
fully set him down in his home and the scene 
of his former activity. Moreover, it took him 
out of the city and gave him the country, 
the true environment for his enterprise in its 
infancy. 

So back to Keilhau he goes, to his educational 
starting-point, after the Swiss separation. We 
find him there December 1st, 1836, writing to 
Langethal in Sw^itzerland a letter in which occurs 
the passage : " Since leaving you I have been at 
work uninterruptedly, constructing, shaping, 
developing the fundamental idea of my life." 

But at Keilhau all is not smooth sailing for 



292 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

him. He demands money for his new Idea from 
Barop, who has control and under whom the 
school has risen to financial prosperity. Here 
Barop draws the line: so much and no more. 
Froebel insisted upon his right of control, but 
Barop again firmly held the reins which had years 
ago dropped from Froebel' s hands. Faint echoes 
of a hot time at Keilhau during these days have 
come down to us; Froebel, with fire in his tem- 
per, and imperious by nature, stormed and raved at 
the limit put upon him in the school which he had 
founded; all to no purpose. It is said by friends 
of both that he even cursed (^verwunscht) Barop, 
who, however, did not flinch, and whom we may 
hear saying: " You shall not wreck this school 
again and reduce our families to beggary. StiU 
I shall help you." 

Froebel does not get hold of Keilhau and 
never will again. The result is he quits it and 
goes to the neighboring village of Blankenburg, 
where Barop rents for him a house which had 
been an old powder mill. Evidently some kind 
of a compromise; Barop furnishes a part of the 
funds and Froebel has a little money from his 
wife's estate; with such a financial outfit, cer- 
tainly not great, the enterprise is to be launched. 
In this struggle at Keilhau it is said that Froebel 
afterwards confessed that Barop was right, in 
which opinion the reader will be apt to agree 
with him. 



THE KINDERGABDEN CONCEIVED. 293 

Still, in spite of all drawbacks, Froebel has 
made the Return to his native land, to his own 
Thuringia, where he felt most at home. If not 
exactly in Keilhau, he is in its neighborhood; 
the Powers have clearly decreed that he cannot 
become its principal, or administer its affairs. 
Such a business mio^ht turn him awav from his 
great new end, which he is henceforth to pursue, 
single-hearted and single-handed. 

Back- to infancy he has come, back to himself 
at the starting-point of life ; back to the mother, 
the first educator, he has reached, to her who 
is now to be the center of his work, and whom 
he is going to train to her vocation. That ideal 
mother of his childhood (he had no actual 
mother) is to be made real; so he at the age of 
fiftv-five wheels around to the beo^inninoj of 
himself and of the Race. 

At the opening of spring in the year 1837, 
with the rejuvenescence of Nature, Froebel 
was stationed in the old powder-mill at Blank- 
enburg, prepared to exploit the new Idea. 
Here the first kindergarden begins, which, 
hitherto chiefly a Conception, is now to move 
forward to Realization. But that wonderful old 
powder-mill at Blankenburg, hired for him by 
Barop, because he apparently had neither money 
nor credit in these parts ! Soon from its de- 
serted walls is to proceed a new kind of explosion 
world-encompassing, and increasing in mighti- 
ness as its detonations roll down Time. (42) 



CHAPTER SECOND. 

THE KINDEROABDEN REALIZED. 

In the previous chapter we saw the kinder- 
garden conceived, born in the brain of Frederick 
Froebel at Burgdorf . Now we are to see it real- 
ized, put into the world, and set to work there. 
The idea is to take on body, its hitherto scattered 
parts are to be united into a whole,- into a sys- 
tem, which, if not entirely complete, will be com- 
plete enough to constitute the permanent working 
organism of the kinder o^arden. 

This new unfolding of it took place at Blank- 
enburg, which witnessed the beginning and end 
of the present period. Seven years it lasted, 
from 1837 to 1844, till both Froebel and the 
kindergarden were ready for its propagation. He 
was 55 years old when he entered upon this 
(294) 



THE EINDEKGARDEN' liEALIZED. 295 

Blankenburg period and opened his first kin- 
dergarden. The practical side of his creative 
power he exerts now, testing, evolving, con- 
structing his greatest work. 

Still this is not accomplished without a consid- 
erable crop of misfortunes and mistakes. He 
will seek to plant before the seed is ripe, and will 
be driven back to his toil by failure. He will 
attempt to -establish a great central institution ere 
he has his system ready for such a step ; the result 
will be a providential blow which will send him 
reeling back to complete his task. Poverty will 
pinch him black and blue, still he will manfully 
endure and perform his mighty labors. His 
bosom companion will be torn from him, but 
though stunned, he cannot be thwarted. Strong- 
hearted man that he is, when felled to the earth, 
he cannot be kept from getting up again. So 
the fates of human existence will weave their re- 
versible threads into the fabric of his life at 
Blankenburg with many an up and down and 
criss-cross, till the cycle of his years be rounded 
and his work there be done. 

From Burgdorf to Blankenburg, then, we 
pass — from the thought to the deed, from the 
Conception to the Realization. Moreover, Burg- 
dorf was an orphanage, a charity, paid for by the 
State, and under its control ; Blankenburg is to be 
a free lance, with the object of imparting the new 
education to all, rich and poor. So we also pass 



296 , THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

from the benevolent to the educative school for 
little children, which is ultimately to be supported 
by the State, not as a charitable institution, but 
as an integral part of a system of Public Instruc- 
tion. 

I. 

First Years at Blankenburg. 

So Froebel has taken* position in his Blanken- 
burg, or Shining Castle, which is veritably to 
illuminate the world. Like a medieval knight 
he has his Burg or Castle from which he sallies 
forth in full panoply against the Powers of Dark- 
ness. The village which goes by the name of 
Blankenburg is a romantic spot nestled on a small 
mountain stream and surrounded with gardens 
and wooded heights, lying not far from Eudol- 
stadt, the chief city of this region, on the one 
side, and on the other side not far froniKeilhau, 
the mother-school, which is to suckle the new- 
born infant. Into his dilapidated powder mill 
he has succeeded in gathering a little band of 
village children, not Avithout some hesitation on 
the part of parents, it would seem, who naturally 
wondered what this curious business meant — an 
old gray-haired man spending his time in playing 
with little children. 

He has as yet no name for his new enterprise 
except some roundabout designation like " Insti- 
tute for the child's creative activity through 



THE KINDEBGARDEN liEALlZED. 297 

play; " the magic word Kuidergarden he has 
not yet come upon, but will later. Still he is 
going to print at once, for the purpose of dis- 
seminating his doctrine ; accordingly he starts 
the Sonntagsblatt (or Sunday Journal) which 
appeared first about the middle of the year 1837, 
continued in 1838, suspended in 1839 and was 
revived in 1840, shortly after which its publica- 
tion ceased. Its articles were written chiefly by 
Froebel himself, and have become a classic au- 
thority for his early views. The Sunday Journal 
of 1837—8 contains an exposition of the plan of 
his Institute, also a full account of the Ball and 
of the Second Gift, or the Sphere and the Cube. 
We can see how deeply this Gift, which is the 
central one of all, the originative one, occupied 
him, as the printed explanations of it take up in 
the original fifty -two pages. This was the Gift 
which dawned upon him at Burgdorf , and which 
gave him the idea of his System of Play-gifts. 
It is elaborated with a fullness which the reader 
now finds somewhat wearisome with its repeti- 
tions and amphfications ; but we must recollect 
that Froebel is here unfoldino^ the o^erm of his 
entire kinder s^arden or onanism, is settins^ down 
the manifold turns of his own mind in thinkino^ 
out the subject at various intervals of time. We 
may suppose that many of these reflections were 
written down before he left Switzerland. So the 
reader will follow with interest this earliest essay 



298 THE LIFE OF FBOEBKL. 

when he considers that it leads into the primitive 
workshop of Froebel's kindergarden idea, which 
can be seen abnost in the act of birth just here. 
There is as yet in the Second Gift no Cylinder, 
which is not yet evolved, but in its place is the 
doll, as an object representing life, and hence 
different in nature from Sphere and Cube. 

As already stated, in 1839 the Sunday Jour- 
nal stopped publication, which, however, was 
resumed in 1840. Then appeared for the first 
time the Third, Fourth and Fifth Gifts, in sep- 
arate boxes with explanatory text and litho- 
graphs for illustration. The Sixth Gift seems 
not yet to have been worked out. We see, also, 
that his system of Morphology with its Forms of 
Life, Beauty and Knowledge was developed, as 
he shows these Forms in a number of examples. 

We must add that the famous motto, " Come, 
let us live for our children," first appeared in the 
title to the Sunday Journal. This was published 
by Frederick Froebel, at Blankenburg, Keilhau, 
Burgdorf , and Columbus, Ohio. This last place 
of publication creates some surprise, but Froebel's 
friends, some of the Frankenberg Bi^Dthers, had 
emigrated, and were located probably in the men- 
tioned American city. 

Froebel had set up his own printing-press, as 
no publisher could be found for his work. 
Moreover, he had to have drawings for his Gifts, 
and lithographic plates had to be made. Herein 



THE KINDERGAEDEN REALIZED. 299 

he was assisted by a very important man, Fred- 
erick linger, painter, who spins the artistic 
thread through FroebeFs later life. He was a 
former pupil at Keilhau, and entered into his 
teacher's plans with zeal and strong appreciation. 
It was linger who prepared the pictures and 
plates for the later Book of Mother Play-songs. 
Indeed, without this strange genius, yet kind- 
hearted and loyal, Froebel could hardly have 
done his Avork, at least this part of it. They 
labored together in tlie so-called work-ship, both 
geniuses, both irritable and dogmatic, always 
falling out with each other, yet always making 
up again, for the one could not do without the 
other. So the picture-maker linger has his 
own unique niche in the kindergarden temple 
of fame. 

Havinsr thus settled at BlanKenburof and made a 
beo'innino^, Froebel feels that he must at once 
start to planting his work in other parts of his 
beloved fatherland. This trait lay deep in him; 
he is the born teacher, he cannot rest till he im- 
parts what he has discovered. Also he sets his 
disciples on fire; the Keilhau teachers carry 
boxes of Play-gifts along on their rambles 
through Germany, showing and explaining them 
at every opportunity. ' In this way the Idea gets 
introduced into Dresden, paving the way for 
Froebel himself. Thus during the year 1838 
there is quite a little propagation in different 



300 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

localities of central Germany, in which work the 
three Keilhau teachers, Barop, Langethal, and 
Middendorf all join, the latter returning from 
Switzerland during this year to help his friend in 
the new task. 

Froebel was at this time the picture of the 
burning propagandist, forgetful of himself and 
also of others in his consuming zeal for the Idea. 
Every human being whom he met and from whom 
he could draw a spark of interest, he would de- 
tain and begin pouring out, pouring out unwear- 
iedly. A visitor at Blankenburg reports that he 
had scarcely reached the village, when Froebel 
knew of his arrival, and appeared at his quarters ; 
at once that long, thin, bony, but elastic figure 
had whisked out his play materials and begun 
explaining them without further introduction. 
All this was accompanied by a flow of talk over- 
whelming in quantity and often obscure in mean- 
ins:, which made the listener wrinkle his forehead 
and draw down his eyebrows in a tremendous fit 
of concentration. But under this exterior lay 
devotion to an ideal end, and in this strange talk 
lurked the new gospel of man's education. 

The culmination of this period of his propa- 
gandism was his visit at Dresden. In company 
with Middendorf we find him in that city giving 
a lecture on Jan. 7th, 1839. Very few could 
follow his peculiar nomenclature when he spoke 
of the whole, and member and member-whole, of 



THE KINDEBQABDEN REALIZED. 301 

the mediation of contraries, of the child in rela- 
tion to the all-life. When he asked what is the 
mediating third between the infant and the world, 
he answered his own question: The Ball. 
Whereat the report is that a smile ran over the 
faces of the audience. Surely not a great suc- 
cess ; the general public had hardly more to carry 
away from the lecture than their own confused 
heads, and the memory of having listened to an 
odd, if not addled, genius from somewhere down 
in Thuringia. Still let a single encouraging ray 
of sunshine be duly noted : the Queen of Saxony ' 
was one of his listeners, and, after manifesting 
much interest in his work, spoke to him in a per- 
sonal interview: *' These aims and efforts of 
yours are very beautiful and noble." 

Froebel continued lecturing^ and workinsf at 
Dresden for more than a month; the scientific 
men assembled once to hear him, and also the 
teachers. There was an attempt to found a 
kindergarden under the leadership of Adolph 
Frankenburg, one of his most devoted followers, 
but the little craft struck upon some unseen 
rocks. Also the scheme of a kinders^arden train- 
ing-school at Dresden was mentioned, but not 
carried out; indeed how could it be, in the pres- 
ent unripe condition of the work? February 
14th Froebel and Middendorf left Dresden and 
journeyed to Leipzig, where again Froebel gave 
some lectures on his present theme and roused 



302 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

some interest. But in this city of publishers he 
did not succeed in obtaining a publisher, which 
seems to have been one of his objects. He 
reached home at Blankenburg April 21st, 1839, 
after an absence of some four months. 

Such was Froebel's first grand tour of propa- 
gandism, which is hereafter to be often re- 
peated. But it was not a success and could not 
be, in the nature of the case. The kindergarden 
idea was born, but not yet realized, though in 
the process of realization. The organism Avas 
growing, but incomplete and immature ; at most 
Froebel had but four Gifts to. show, and not all 
of these were yet ready for distribution in boxes 
with printed explanations. This is to come 
later. So Froebel failed to make the large city 
of Dresden his center, but was remanded back 
to his little country village of Blankenburg for 
further study and development. Undoubtedly 
he sowed some seed and made some friends, so 
that the time was not wholly lost. But the 
chief lesson was the consciousness that his sys- 
tem was still imperfect, and must now be wrought 
out to something like completeness. 

Then we must observe that his dearest friend 
and disciple, as well his most eloquent and win- 
ning expounder, Middendorf , could not help him, 
though with him on this journey. For Midden- 
dorf had recently returned from Switzerland after 
an absence of several years, and had not yet 



THE KINDERGARDEN REALIZED. 303 

made the kindergardeii his own. So he had to 
stand by in silence for the mo^t part, giving only 
to the cause of his friend his personal presence, 
which was a benediction. Later he will work 
with Froebel at Blankenburg and come to know 
the kindergarden as none other except its foun- 
der knew it; then he will employ that silvery 
tongue of his in its propagation with an eloquence 
which probably none of its advocates have since 
equaled. 

When Froebel returned home from Dresden 
he found his wife in a sinking condition, in fact 
dying. She breathed her last May 13th, 1839, 
in the 59th year of her age. 

Already the outlines of her life with Froebel 
have been carried along with the preceding nar- 
rative. She, a highly cultivated lady, "the 
pupil of Fichte and Schleiermacher," had left a 
luxurious home in Berlin, and had courageously 
undergone the hardships and reverses of Keilhau. 
She went with her husband to Switzerland, and 
while there contracted the malady which was to 
end her life. She had no children of her own 
but possessed very strongly the maternal instinct, 
which has its memorial in her husband's greatest 
book, the Mother Play-songs. Already at Berlin 
she adopted a daughter whom Langethal after- 
wards married ; then she adopted a second daugh- 
ter, Luise, who died only a few days before her. 



304 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

Froebel's house was indeed a house of mourning 
after his return from Dresden. 

Bowed to the earth by the blow, Froebel took 
refuge with his priestly friend Middendorf at 
Keilhau for consolation and recovery. He says 
that only with great difficulty he rose to his feet 
again and began work. In June, 1839, we find 
him once more at his task in Bhmkenburg, having 
now under his charge 30, 40, and sometimes 50 
children from one to seven years old. He drowns 
his great sorrow in labor; he must henceforth, 
first of all, unfold and complete his system of 
Play-gifts, having found the grand opportunity 
in the little ones before him. Also teachers 
come to him for instruction, so that he has a little 
training-school connected with his kindergarden. 
But all of them are as yet men. 

Still his larger thought on this subject is 
beginning to germinate in his heart. He seeks 
to interest women, married and single, in the 
education of little children. Toward the end of 
1839 we find him occupied with the thought of 
founding an association of ladies for this pur- 
pose. The coming Christmas he would celebrate 
by the establishment of such an association. 
The loss of his wife seems to have vividly 
brought home to his feelings the place of 
woman in the household and in education; he 
sees the void when she is gone. 

Such were the varied experiences of Froebel 



THE KINDERGARDEN REALIZED. 305 

during these first three years at Blankenburg, 
from 1837 till 1840. A good beginning he has 
certainly made toward realizing his Idea. Beside 
his work in the kindergarden proper, with its 
living overflow of suggestion, he has a printing- 
press to disseminate his thoughts. He has a 
little factory for making his play-material, of 
Avhich the third, fourth and fifth Gifts in their 
boxes with explanatory text and plates appear in 
1840. Printing, engraving, manufacturing are 
all carried on by the man single-handed and with- 
out money. How did he do it? One thing is 
certain: such a spirit cannot be put down by 
the fates of existence in their most malignant 
mood. 

He was troubled about a fitting name for his 
new institution. Various designations he had 
given it, but he could not satisfy himself. One of 
these was KleinMnderbesclidftigungsanstalt (liter- 
ally small'children-occupatioii-institute)^ which 
was just a little too German for even the Ger- 
mans. Nine syllables and four concepts thrust 
into one word ! It will not do — a name wrapped 
in such a quantity of swaddling clothes, though 
it be for the babies ! Another must be coined 
direct from the mint of the soul. Froebel was 
walking one day over the Steiger to Blanken- 
burg, in company with Barop and Middendorf . 
He cried out repeatedly, " O for a name suitable 
to my youngest child ! ' ' Blankenburg lay at 

20 



306 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

their feet, pensively he stepped along. Sud- 
denly he stood still as if chained to the earth, 
and his eye assumed a transfigured look. Then 
he shouted to the mountains, that the echo came 
back from the four winds: '' Heureka, I have 
found it ! KiNDERGAKDEN it shall be called ! ' ' 

Such is Barop's dramatic account of the birth 
of that magic word, which bids fair to pass into 
every living tongue on the globe and to outlast 
the German language itself. In the deepest 
sense did Froebel shout this word from the 
mountain-tops ; the echo is still resounding from 
the four quarters of the earth, not dying away 
but strangely increasing in volume, like that 
famous " shot heard round the world." (43) 

II. 

The Blankenburg Festival. 

The infant has now a name, verily a name 
with which to conjure. Not only born, but bap- 
tized, though by no means strong enough to 
make its way in the world ; it has yet to grow, to 
develop, to become a complete, fully rounded 
organism, capable of standing on its own feet and 
marching toward its end. Still the impatient 
Froebel is eager to publish at once its happy 
name linked with its idea ; far and wide must the 
word hindergarden be made to sound in men's 
ears. So he schemes a grand festival which is 



THE KINDERQABDEN BEALIZED. 307 

to launch the Universal Gevnian Kinder gar den at 
Bhmkenburg on the 28th day of June, 1840. In 
one festal day four anniversaries of birth-days 
are to be celebrated, Keilhau and Blankenburg 
joining hands for this purpose. These are the 
four which are to become one : — 

1. The general birth-day festival of all the 
Keilhau students. It was a former custom at 
Keilhau to celebrate the birth-day of each pupil, 
but, with the increase of attendance, this had 
become impossible. So there was a general cele- 
bration of all the birth -days, which was placed on 
the 28th of June, for the present year. 

2. On the same day was the festival of St. 
John the Baptist, who was also a prophet and 
forerunner of great events. 

3. On the same day the 400th anniversary of 
the invention of printing was placed, the Gutten- 
berg festival, which had likewise its deep sig- 
nificance for Froebel, who was his own printer. 

4. Last but not least, the celebration of the 
founding: of the Universal German Kinder o-arden> 
to which, indeed, the other festivals are chiefly 
many-hued halos encircling the glorified child. 

Keilhau and Blankenburg, then, are to unite on 
this festal occasion, under Froebel, the founder 
of both institutions. Teachers and pupils, com- 
ing together from each place in different direc- 
tions, before sunrise, assemble on the Dessau, a 
small mountain. There they await, in a sort of 



308 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL, 

nature-worship, the rise of the Sun, the suggest- 
ive image of the work of St. John, Guttenberg, 
and Froebel, all of whom were light-bearers of 
the earth. Barop saluted the grand luminary 
with a hymn, wliich reminds us of that old Greek 
hymn to Apollo, the sun -god of Hellas, who also 
had his festivals. The chorus of singers followed 
with their song. Then the procession, taking a 
fine view of the hills and valleys bursting into the 
gorgeous illumination of the morning, went down 
the mountain to the Keilhau schoolhouse, where 
Middendorf made an address, full of the glorifi- 
cation of all these birth- days. More songs, with 
a general salutation of all to each and each to all, 
followed by a universal halleluiah of those hungry 
boys, when the heavenly word dropped down 
among them : Breakfast. Such was the first 
grand act of the day, with a streak in it of old 
Aryan sun-worship, though now filled with a 
purposed symbolism in Froebel' s vein. 

Next comes the distinctively Christian part of 
the program, with many choral songs inter- 
spersed. After breakfast, at the proper hour, 
the children assembled at the churcn and listened 
to a sermon preached by one of tae Keilhau 
teachers on the text: "Many Gifts, but One 
Spirit." We have to think of Froebel' s Gifts in 
this connection — and why not? The preacher 
made an elaborate comparison between John the 
Baptist and John Guttenberg, those two great 



THE EINDEBQABDEN BEALIZED. 309 

lights of the past — and why should he not 
throw a side glance at the third great luminary 
now present? But enough ! with prayer and 
song ends the forenoon of the festival. 

In the afternoon when refreshments had been 
duly attended to, they began their festal pilgrim- 
age to Blankenburg, which was the grand objec- 
tive point of the whole celebration. See them 
in wagons decked with foliage, hung with fes- 
toons and flowers, over-canopied with boughs of 
trees — teachers and pupils, girls and boys, 
laughter and song, rolling down the valley of the 
little brook Schaale, through two small villages, 
where the people flock out to see and salute — 
the clouds above throwing down now and then 
a few drops of rain just for fun. At last they 
arrive at Blankenburg, and on the market-place 
they stop and salute the town with a festal song 
of praise, whose unpretentious refrain has a ten- 
dency to jingle through the head for a little 

while. 

Gegriisset sei uns diese Stadt, 
Die schiitzend Kinderpflege hat. 

This greeting to the '' city " being ended, all 
pass to the Town Hall, where the Guttenberg 
part of the festival is to be celebrated. The 
chorus of Keilhau singers with some help from 
Eudolstadt now sing The Miner' s Salute — the 
miner, who brings up to man and sunlight the 
deep-hidden treasures, hitherto valueless and 



310 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

unknown, of Mother Eartli. His salute to the 
world as he comes out of the shaft, is Gliich 
aufl 

Just at this point in the closing of the 'song, 
Froebel rises to speak, and, as the beginning of 
his address, he catches up from the singers and 
repeats three times the refrain : Gliich auf^ 
Gliich auf, Gliich auf! He is the miner now 
appearing who has brought from the deep, dark 
shaft of the primeval Mother certain precious 
truths, of which he is^ going to give some 
account in person. 

Froebel speaks at first of Guttenberg and the 
invention of printing, which is the " mediator of 
Past, Present, and Future." But he soon turns 
away to where his heart lies, to education in gen- 
eral and specially to the topic of all topics, to 
the kindergarden, " the Universal German Kin- 
dergarden, to be called German on account of its 
spirit." So he feels himself compelled to defend 
that w^ord Deutsch in the title of his institution, 
and it certainly needs his defense. Contradic- 
tory are the two adjectives, and are destined, 
like the famous Kilkenny cats, to eat each other 
up and vanish, leaving the word huidergarden to 
posterity and eternity. Strange! but Froebel in 
spite of his Swiss dip, could not wholly free him- 
self from nativism. So he called his school at 
Keilhaii long ago the Universal German Institute, 
to which appellation the philosopher Krause, we 



THE KINDERGABDEN REALIZED. 311 

recollect, strongly objected with good reason. 
But let the name pass, the thing is here. 

Particularly in this address does Froebel appeal 
to women, married and unmarried. To them he 
looks for the chief support of his undertaking. 
Especially does he try to stir them from their 
** modesty and seclusion." Do not think our 
city too little, our country too poor, our re- 
sources too limited. Do not despise the small 
thing — the small place, the small start, the 
small child, the small kindergarden. Women, 
open 3'our eyes, your hearts, and your purses — 
let each of you subscribe for a share of this 
stock . 

Here we reach the grand purpose of Froebel' s 
speech as well as of the whole festival. He had 
evolved a dazzling scheme of finance, though he 
had certainly not distinguished himself as a 
financier in his previous record. The assemblage 
breaks up, in an adjoining room grown people 
are invited to subscribe to Froebel' s new enter- 
prise, while the children run out into the open 
air, and play his games and sing his songs. 

All Keilhau participated in this festival, Mid- 
dendorf , Barop and the rest. But there is one 
person whom we look around to spy, but he is 
not to be found. This is Langethal, who for 
nearly thirty years has been the companion of 
Froebel, through all the ups and downs of Keil- 
liau, and also of the Swiss period. But Lange- 



312 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL, 

thai has separated from Froebel, after a little 
short dip in the kindergarden, and has returned 
to Switzerland, where he has accepted a position 
in the Girls' School at Bern — "a step" says 
Barop, "which Froebel never forgave." So 
these friends have o^one asunder, and Lano^e- 
thai drops out of Froebel' s life during the whole 
kindergarden period. Only after Froebel' s death 
will he, an old man and blind, return to his for- 
mer place at Keilhau under Barop, and instruct 
the later Keilhau students, who will celebrate 
the fame of "their best teacher," though he 
did not and could not see the print of a text- 
book, knowing even his Greek Homer by heart. 

(44)- 

Such is the conclusion of the festival at Blank- 

enburg. Strange destiny of the small German 
hamlet! Visited now by hundreds of pilgrims 
(destined to be thousands), and regarded with 
more love and reverence by more strangers than 
any other German town, large or small ! This 
very year and month in which I am writing these 
words (June, 1900), the festival of 1840 is to be 
re-celebrated at Blankenburg, with dedication of 
the New Froebel House, center of the kinder- 
garden world, whither kindergardners are now 
flocking from the ends of the earth, all with an 
apostolic fervor in their hearts. For they must 
make their pilgrimage to the cradle of the kinder- 
garden, to the very manger, so to speak, where 



THE KINDERGABDE^ REALIZED. 813 

lay the new-born world-child and first saw the 
light of heaven, in the little town of Blankenburg. 
'*And thou, Bethlehem, though thou be little 
among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee 
shall he come forth unto me, that is to be the 
ruler in Israel." 

III. 

The Blankenburg Bubble. 

We are now to witness Froebel in a new and 
unique role, that of blowing a colossal financial 
bubble for the purpose of floating his scheme 
into the heaven of abounding cash. As he 
has described this process, let us hear him 
speak : — 

'' So be the contribution to the great educa- 
tional work fixed at ten dollars (Prussian thalers) 
a person, in the form of a bond, for which the 
German women — wives and virsfins ( Frauen und 
Jungfrauen) — are to subscribe. 

'* Now let us take for granted that only one 
hundred women in the larger circles of life are so 
penetrated with the truth and beneficent effect 
of this work, that each one will take not only one 
bond herself (ten dollars), but will influence ten 
other women of her acquaintance so that each of 
these will also take a bond. Thus we shall have 
1,100 women, German wives and virgins, as 
bondholders in the grand enterprise. 

" Still further, with o^reat certaintv, it can be 



314 THE LIFE OF FliOEBEL. 

assumed, on account of the purely human and 
religious si)irit of the whole work, as well as on 
account of the purely human and God-united f eel- 
ins: and life of German women, that each of these 
new thousand women, if not directly, yet through 
the help of others, wiirobtain ten more wives and 
virofins for the furtherance of the scheme. Thus 
there will be altogether the grand total of 11,100 
women participating in the enterprise. 

',' But let us assume only 10,000 actual share- 
holders at $10 a share; it is plain that there will 
be the full capital of One hundred thousand 
dollars.''' (Extract from Froebel's prospectus, 
dated Blankenburg, May 1st, 1840; reprinted in 
Lange's edition -of Froebel's Schriften, II., s. 
463.) 

Such was the gorgeous bubble which floated 
before Froebel's imaojination durino^ this time ; he 
played with it till it became the most solid reality. 
He came to have no doubt of the instantaneous 
success of the scheme. He seemed to hear the 
money clinking in his coffers ; he engaged a book- 
keeper and business manager before a single 
bond had been sold — all on the strength of the 
fabulous 100,000 dollars. 

Now what is he going to do with this money? 
A fairy world of grand projects filled his head, 
for the bubbles one after another kept rising 
and dancing off before him, filled with all the 
iridescence of unrestrained dreamland. But the 



THE KINDERGABDEN REALIZED. 315 

educational part of the i)rogram consisted chiefly 
of the following practical matters : — 

1. A model kindergarden. 

2. A traininor school for kinderojardners. 

3. A factory for kindergarden material. 

4. A publication department for a periodical 
and for kindergarden literature. 

5. A center for mothers' associations, for 
teachers of children, and for all those interested 
in what is now called child-study. 

A large building was to be erected, or rather a 
series of buildings, for whose construction the 
judgment of the best German architects was to 
be invoked. The first hundred subscribers were 
allured with a special honor : they were to be 
called the Founders, and their names were to be 
eternally preserved by being placed under the 
corner-stone of the edifice ; and this edifice was 
to be begun when a thousand subscribers had 
been secured. The whole was to be the property 
of the bondholders, and provision was also made 
for the distribution of the dividends, as the 
speculation would certainly be profitable to the 
investors, besides aiding the great cause of edu- 
cating infants. And many other items, which 
the curious reader can still peruse in the above- 
cited prospectus. 

But alack-a-day! Froebel's many-hued ** joint 
stock concern " (to use the dialect of the Board 
of Trade) fell flat from the start, he had no 



316 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

modern methods ** of bulling the market." The 
thousand subscribers never subscribed, so the big 
pile of buildings never rose, never even fluttered 
to rise. Hence the Universal German Kinder- 
garden, as planned in 1840, never existed; the 
kinder Of arden founded in 1837 did exist and will 
outlast this fiasco for a while, thouo^h badlv 
shattered bj its explosion. A great mistake is it 
to say that Froebel's kindergarden was founded 
in 1840 at Blankenburg — a statement which 
has crept into many books treating of this 
subject. 

Three weeks after the celebration we find Froe- 
bel writing to his cousin. Madam Schmidt, com- 
plaining that subscriptions had fallen behind ex- 
pectations, that the first hundred, or the Found- 
ers, had not yet come forward, in spite of the 
alluring promise of immortality under the corner- 
stone, or that other more solid promise of pay- 
inof dividends on their investment. And so it 
continued. At last, on the 28th of June, 1843, 
just three years after the festival, a report was 
made by the officials of the Universal German 
Kindergarden, showing 155 subscribers instead 
of 10,000, of whom just 37 had paid up in money, 
so that the treasury possessed in cash 370 dol- 
lars instead of 100,000. 

Quite a little sum of incidental expenses, how- 
ever, had been incurred in all these proceedings ; 
the printer, the bookkeeper, the traveling agent. 



THE KINDERQARDEN REALIZED. 317 

etc., had to be paid; shopmen also sent in sun- 
dry accounts for a variety of merchandise. As 
Froebel had neither money nor credit in these 
parts, Barop had to be his security in the first 
place, and now. has to foot all the bills. Even 
Barop, the most level-headed man of the lot, 
seems to have lost his level head for a while, 
ojazinoj at Froebel' s o^randiose bubble floatino* in all 
its glory over Blankenburg and Keilhau. But 
these bills soon brought back his mental balance, 
and he beojan to draw the financial rein tio^hter 
than ever on that heaven-scaling Pegasus, which 
was always running away cloud ward with Froebel. 
Great and noble, as well as far-sighted Barop 
shows himself in these matters ; loval to the Idea 
always, he knew he could save it and Froebel 
only by providing a kind of inexpugnable finan- 
cial fortress in his Keilhau school, to which 
Froebel and all the propagandists might flee in 
case of need. The history of the cause confirms 
the truth of what he says of his part of the 
work : "I restored the sunken credit ( of Keil- 
hau) by paying its debts, and, as the revenues 
of the school kept increasing, I soon owned the 
land on which it stood. From this point, then, 
I was more and more able to support the enter- 
prises of the others, having secured a sufficient 
anchorage for the whole circle, and a place of 
refuge for every emergency." Such was Barop*s 
share in the cause and it looks as if the vessel had 



318 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

gone to pieces and sunk to the bottom but for 
his foresight and energy. (45) 

Most complete, however, is the collapse of 
the Blankenburg bubble. Still the little kinder- 
garden there will go on as before ; people come 
for training, though few in number; play mate- 
rial is manufactured, though not in great quan- 
tity; the printing press is also at work in a 
humble. way. Froebel, at first stunned by the 
blow, rises to his feet, and begins the completion 
of his great task ; again he must show himself 
the Fate-compeller. Gradually it will dawn 
upon him that his cause was not ready for such 
a magnificent start; the kindergarden had still 
to grow, it was not yet organically complete, not 
yet mature enough for successful propagation. 
Providence he must again behold masking in the 
guise of misfortune. 

All can now see good grounds for the failure 
of the scheme. Most of these 10,000 women 
would have to ask their husbands or at least 
some man for the money. But the German 
woman was not at that time, emancipated to the 
deo^ree she is now. And what could be more 
natural for a woman, even if she had the money, 
than to consult some business man about the in- 
vestment. A crazy speculation he would say ; so 
would you and I, though we would add: *' By 
all means give Froebel the money." And the 
poorest kindergardner would buy a share, for the 



THE KINDEEGABDEN BEALIZED. ' 319 

sake of the man and the cause. We read that 
nearly all the stock sold was taken by the Blank- 
enburgers, who might well see fame and profit 
for their little town in those large buildings, and 
in the pupils of the institution. But we can 
well understand how much banter that wife had 
to endure who asked her husband: '* My dear, 
give me ten dollars for Froebel's specula- 
tion." 

Yet it is significant to note how completely Froe- 
bel's dream has been realized since that failure, 
and through it, in fact. Not one German kinder- 
o^arden now, but thousands amono^ all civilized 
nations; not that single Blankenburg training- 
school, but hundreds in many tongues ; not that 
one little factory for materials, but a notable 
branch of the world's business; and the kinder- 
garden press not small, nor inclined to silence; 
and kindergarden literature incessantly pouring 
itself forth, of which this present book is but a 
tiny drop in a world-embracing cataract. So that 
wild Blankenburg: dream of Froebel has been 
fulfilled — truly a prophetic festival, if there ever 
was one. Whimsical old Time in a fit of jealousy 
smote Froebel's scheme into nothingness, and 
then started with all his might to realizing it 
himself. 

But the bubble burst, and Froebel was saved. 
Of all terrestrial phantasms, success can be the 
most double and two-faced. Without this Blank- 



320 ■ THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

enburg collapse, there would have been no com- 
pleted Mother Play-song, as far as we can now 
prognosticate ; hence no completed kindergarden 
system. The discipline of failure has taken 
Froebel in hand, and sent him back with stripes 
to his apprenticeship which is to last for quite 
three years, sternly compelling him to do his 
divinely allotted task ere release can come. 
What this task is, may now be set forth. 

IV. 

The Book of Mother Play-Songs, 

Thus Froebel is thrown back upon himself by 
another blow of Fate, and he begins to digest his 
failure. But at first he is somewhat bitter on 
account of the result ; he blames the people for 
their lack of spirit, he blames the women, mar- 
ried and unmarried, for their want of apprecia- 
tion. All of which is very natural, but he must 
get over it, and proceed once more to grapple 
destiny by the horns. After some months, when 
he sees his glorious scheme utterly doomed, he 
goes back to his kindergarden at Blankenburg. 

One day he has a very agreeable surprise. A 
deputation of parents with their little ones comes 
from Rudolstadt to visit his kinder o^arden. The 
result is he is invited by them to establish a 
kindergarden in Rudolstadt, the capital of the 
province. A very busy man; up to twelve 



THE KINDERQABDEN REALIZED. 321 

o'clock he gives lessons in Blankenburg, then 
punctually at one o'clock he starts for-Rudol- 
stadt where he arrives in a little less than an 
hour. A large field for experience he has in his 
two kindergardens, and we find him asking for 
the observations of others in his letters. Quite 
a little society for child-study he has already 
formed in the year 1840. In both kindergardens 
Middendorf is his constant companion and 
helper. 

In this same year (1840) he resumes the pub- 
lication of the Sunday JowniaZ, which, however, 
suspends again after a brief existence. Still he 
keeps at work in spite of reverses. He prepares 
a little book of nursery songs (^Koseliedchen) , 
which he prints in 1841. It is the prelude to 
the book of Mother Play-songs, and its purpose 
is, as he says, "to train the body, limbs and 
senses of quite small children." 

With this book he seems to have become at 
once dissatisfied, and he resolves to start over 
again and recast the whole work, in accord with 
his completed conception. Each play-song is to 
have four parts — motto, song, picture, and ex- 
planations, to which music must also be added. 
Then each play-song must be made a member of 
a greater totality, which constitutes at last the 
book. So the Mother Plav-sonsys o^et orofanized, 
singly and collectively; but they, too, are only 
one part of the total kindergarden organism, 

21 



322 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

which more and more definitely is shaping itself 
in the mind of Froebel. * 

So the much-tried man, under the very ham- 
mer of misfortune, starts to producing his great- 
est book, in fact the keystone in the arch of his 
whole enterprise. During three years, as nearly 
as we can estimate the time, this book must have 
been his chief thought and occupation, employ- 
ing also his immediate assistants. We can see 
him, day in and day out, working it over, testing- 
it on his kindergarden children, and ordering it 
according to a fundamental Idea, which holds it 
together in an inner unity, and likewise dis- 
tinguishes it from any other work of the kind. 

Many tender threads connect the book with 
the past, and with those who are gone. He 
puts the mother into the center of the family and 
of his scheme of education. Of his own wife he 
must have often been reminded, as she had a 
share in its early conception and composition, 
and his mother also floated back to him from the 
distant days of his childhood, idealized of course, 
for he never really knew her. 

During these three years he hardly leaves 
Blankenburg, he will not travel to propagate his 
Idea till this be fully wrought out and embodied 
in print. He sees the meaning of his failure at 
Dresden, and of the still greater failure of the 
grand bond scheme. His work is not yet ripe, 
his system is not yet ready for successful plant- 



THE KINDEEGAEDEN REALIZED. 323 

ing. Let him think it out and realize it both in 
writing and in material shapes. He is now alone, 
the widower Froebel, having a small household 
and eating at a restaurant. Little or no care he 
has, even for food, as Barop will not let him 
starve; so he plunges into his new task, which, 
among other blessings, gives him an antidote for 
his many sorrows. 

And now we must devote a few words to Froe- 
bel' s chief assistants in this work. Alreadv we 
have mentioned the part of Madam Henriette 
Froebel in its origin and growth, but she never 
saw the completed Mother Play-song, much less 
the completed book, which underwent a good 
deal of development after her decease. 

There is no doubt that he obtained manifold 
and continuous help from his dearest friend and 
inseparable co-worker, WilheluiMiddendorf, who 
possessed a versifying gift, and also the love of 
practicing it upon every suitable occasion. A 
certain power of reproducing the popular ballad, 
Middendorf shows in his published verses, a touch 
of the folk-song was his by nature; also, he was 
a good vocalist and much given to singing. Thus 
he could furnish most valuable assistance to 
Froebel, who was not a good singer, having a 
kind of a nasal snarl in his voice, and he says 
that he had no thorough knowledge of music, 
though passionately devoted to song. Midden- 
dorf Avas the father of a blooming family of chil- 



324 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

dren, and had occasion to practice lullabies all his 
life in his own household, singing for his babies 
and with them, in romp and play. Thus he knew 
the Play-song before Froebel, and in a way that 
Froebel never knew it, as the latter never had 
any children of his own. But no one will ever 
be able to tell how much and what Middendorf 
contributed to the book of Mother Play-songs ; 
he was content to have his work, his life, yea, 
his very Self sink away and be swallowed up in 
Froebel. Still there can be no question that 
Froebel was the creative genius of the book, the 
central sun which furnished the light. 

The music in the original was the work of 
Eobert Kohl, student of theology, and teacher 
at Keilhau. During this time he was betrothed 
to Elise, third and youngest of the Froebel girls, 
who have played such an important part in the 
history of Keilhau. The engagement, however, 
was broken, and some ten years later (in 1850) 
Elise marries Dr. Siegfried Schaffner, also co- 
worker in Keilhau. Kohl's music has found the 
least favor of any part of the work, and is now 
generally discarded. Editors (like Seidel) print 
usually a little of it by way of example, but feel 
that they have to mend even that little. 

But the man wdio is to be placed next to 
Froebel in importance and in genius is Frederick 
Unger, the picture-maker of the book of Mother 
Play-songs. Already he has been mentioned as 



THE KINDERGABDEN HE ALT ZED. 325 

the person who made the lithographic plates for 
the forms of the Play -gifts. But now he is 
called to do the great work of his life in con- 
junction with his former teacher, Froebel. 

Unger had received his training in art at 
Munich. Especially in the setting of his pictures 
we can observe abundant signs of his previous 
studies, which were not superficial. He was for 
many years the chief teacher of drawing at Keil- 
hau, and has left a name among all its pupils for 
oddity and originality. Bachelor, woman-hater, 
yea, man-hater too; yet strangely a lover of 
children, who, if they but appeared, had the 
power to divert his wonted tirades against 
humanity. Also he was a great lover of birds, 
of which he kept a large number in his bachelor 
quarters ; these he would talk to and call by all sorts 
of caressing names. But let a woman dare enter 
those quarters! " The root of all evil," as he 
called her, would again be expelled from Para- 
dise, for Unger had made up his mind to keep 
mother Eve and all her daughters out of his 
Eden. Then Satan would not even try to 
get in. 

In personal appearance Unger is described 
as stout and squatty; broad-shouldered, red- 
bearded, with a beard as broad as a board; he 
always wore around his loins a bio^ belt, in which 
he stuck the various implements of his art, such 



326 TRE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

as pencils and paint brushes ; among these could 
be always seen a little short pipe, black with 
much smoking ; shirt collar open, without neck- 
tie, his head jauntily set off with a skull-cap. 
Such was the outer visible appearance of the 
artistic genius with whom Froebel labored for 
three years and more in the work-shop at Blan- 
kenburg over the book of Mother Play-songs. 

Matters did not always run smooth in that 
shop. Originals both of them, and both irasci- 
ble in addition; both strongly self-assertive, 
yes, self -conceited, if the right word be spoken 
out; Froebel would take one of linger' s 
sketches, and if it did not please him, would tear 
it up and fling the pieces on the floor, with an 
outburst of disparagement. Then Unger's turn 
would come, and he would flare up, saying 
*'You don't know anything about art" — a 
statement which has at least its grain of truth, 
as the reader may still verify in some of Froe- 
bel' s interpretations of these very pictures. The 
next time, however, Froebel would be delighted, 
would praise the genius of his artist, even pat 
him on the back, calling him his good boy. For 
we must recollect that linger when a boy was 
Froebel' s pupil in the Keilhau school, years ago ; 
which relation Froebel never could forget, so 
true of him and of the rest of us is the adage, 
**Once a schoolmaster always a schoolmaster." 



THE KINDEBGABDEN BEALIZED. 327 

So they fought out their three years' battle in 
that work-shop ; if Unger would (juit in a storm 
of wrath, he would always come back, for he 
somehow felt that, just this was the grand task 
of his life. Certainly Unger could not have been 
working for mone}^ in that moneyless business with 
that moneyless man, Frederick Froebel. From 
drawing-lessons given to outsiders he will earn 
enough for sustenance; a piece of sausage, black 
bread, and smear-cheese will furnish the blood 
and brain for making these pictures, which have 
in them immortality. (46) 

So hold fast to thy task, strong-hearted pic- 
ture maker, though enduring much; of all the 
pictures made on this globe, thine are destined to 
be looked upon by a vaster multitude of human 
eyes than the pictures of any other mortal artist, 
even if he be a Raphael or a Michel Angelo. The 
greatest of all picture books for little children is 
thine, being so closely bound up with the kinder- 
garden, from which it will never be divorced. 
Over Europe, over America, the shapes of thy 
pencil are scattered, yea into Asia; in Japan 
they have been reproduced for the Japanese little 
ones with a curious Japanese transformation in 
their outlines, through which, however, we can 
still see the hand of Frederick Unger, as it drew 
soulful fiojures in the small villao^e of Blankenburo^ 
not yet sixty years ago. 



\ 



328 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

V. 

The System Completed. 

In September, 1843, the work on the book of 
Mother Play-songs had so far progressed that the 
letter-press could be given to the printer. Not 
till the be2:innino^ of 1844 could the leaves be 
bound and the book launched on the market. 

From the start it met with criticism and de- 
rision. x\.nd at the first glance it still seems a 
ridiculous production. By no means is it a flaw- 
less piece of work ; indeed it is remarkable for 
the number and peculiar nature of its flaws. But 
its defects pertain almost wholly to \i^ form, not 
to its idea, which is of the hicrhest and noblest. 
Its artistic sins are indeed many — in it can be 
found bad poetry, bad prose, bad pictures ; but 
the spirit is there, and the spirit is what makes 
it immortal. Tried by a formal literary standard 
it falls far short ; but in educative oris^inalitv it 
still awaits its peer. Its soul seems careless, 
almost defiant of its vesture ; still it becomes at 
last fascinating in its very audacity. Tlie idea 
gets itself expressed, not so much by means of 
as in spite of its form, and so its study turns to 
a kind of initiation into Froebel's apostolate. 
Rather pitiful is that educator who can see and 
exploit only its shortcomings, which nobody has 
ever denied. Very marvelous is the phenome- 
non : with enough imperfections hung around its 



THE KINDEBGAEDEN BEALIZED. 329 

neck to drag it down to the very bottom of the 
sea of oblivion, it still keeps afloat, triumphantly 
swimming down the, stream of Time with an 
ever-increasing buoyancy. The person who 
enters truly into its spirit, gets not only some 
flickering educational light about this and that 
topic, but he is transformed, he undergoes a 
genuine conversion, for he has heard the sacred 
Gospel of the Little Child. But it requires pa- 
tience at the start, yea, some degree of literary 
self-denial — more faith, less wit, more charity, 
less criticism ; then it will j^eld up its secret, for 
it is and will remain the chief canonical Book in 
the Kinder o^arden Bible. 

Finally the work is done, not however, without 
a serious last obstacle. What is the matter now? 
Lack of funds; the treasury is absolutely empty, 
and every little fountain-rill feeding it has run 
dry. But in the very crisis, behold again! A 
small inheritance from his wife's estate comes 
trickling down from above somewhere into that 
dried-up money-box, and once more Life and 
radiant Hope appear in a fresh incarnation, for 
the child, after so many and such prolonged 
birth-pains, is actually born and set out into the 
world. 

And on the title-page at the bottom let us note 
the significant fact: " Blankenburg, near Rudol- 
stadt, published by the Institute for Little Chil- 
dren," that is published by Froebel himself. 



330 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

No publisher again, as in the case of The 
Education of Man^ no great publishing firm of 
Berlin or Leipzig has its name on the title-page ; 
and that book which many regard as the greatest 
modern educational work, Avould never have 
existed if it had depended on a publisher. 
Froebel would have gladly shifted the cares 
of publication and of the whole business upon 
a younger man, or upon a publishing firm, but 
even friendly Doerfling of Leipzig, who was 
in the book- trade, was evidently afraid to touch 
the work. (47) 

Asrain we hear a runnino^ shriek of condemna- 
tion from 'writers who berate Froebel for his 
lack of all business capacity, because he printed 
and published his own book. But he could not 
help himself. Imagine Froebel with his long 
hair, peculiar antiquated costume, sunburnt 
homely face, entering the dainty fastidious office 
of a great Leipzig publisher, who would be sure 
to get a dose of the New Idea in language unin- 
telligible to any publisher that ever lived. To 
such a man or to his taster, imagine Froebel 
offering this Book of Mother Play-songs, and 
explaining a sample of its contents. Or for that 
matter, imagine William Shakespeare appearing 
in London to-day and offering to one of its great 
publishers the manuscript of Hamlet. Or, rising 
to the top of the argument, let us imagine Him 
who spake as never man spake, bringing a book 



THE KINDERGABDEN REALIZED. 331 

of His collected sayings, called The Four Gos- 
pels, to a New York publisher — would it be 
accepted? Every honest publisher will con- 
fess that in his publishing house the Lord him- 
self would stand no chance. 

All of which simply means that the truly orig- 
inal work,, which has to fight its way in the 
world, and slowly to make its own public, lacks 
salabilit}^, which is the fundamental fact with 
the publisher. Not till the book with its author 
has been crucified, does it become a fit subject for 
publication. So Froebel, having faith in his 
work, had not only to write it» but to print, plant 
and publish it, if need be, with his heart's blood, 
or be false to the deepest call of his own soul. 
So in this matter Froebel shows again the gran- 
itic foundation of his character, and it is no 
wonder that his -example calls forth in his fol- 
lowers not merely an acceptance of his doctrines, 
but a unique apostolic devotion to his cause. 

With the completion of the Mother Play-song, 
the whole system of the kindergarden is fairly 
complete. It has still to grow, but the organism 
is on hand, audit is the organism which is hence- 
forth to grow. Its main doctrines as well as its 
chief means of instruction are in print. So 
everything seems to have gotten itself in readi- 
ness for a great new step forward out of Blanken- 
burg,' out of the narrow confined horizon in which 
Froebel has penned himself up for several years. 



332 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Let US look for a moment at what has been 
done. Without going into details here, we be- 
hold the three great constituents of the kin- 
dero^arden or onanism wrouo^ht out and workino^ 
too^ether in an ordered Whole. These are: — 

I. The Play-o^ifts, in a well-rounded series with 
material and printed directions. 

II. The Play-songs, collected and ordered in 
the book already mentioned. 

III. The Play-ring (or circle), long known 
among children, but taken up and vitilized anew 
by Froebel. In psychological order the Play- 
ring will be placed first. 

What next? Forth into the wide world he 
must go again and sow the fields, but under 
changed circumstances; now with his sower's 
sheet full of good seed-corn, he can in time 
justly expect the harvest. The watchword is 
henceforth propagation, which will have many 
ups and downs, making a good deal o^ history, 
to which we shall devote our final chapter. 



A 



CHAPTER THIRD, 

THE KINDERQARDEN PROPAGATED. 

We have now reached the last epoch of Froe- 
bel's life, that epoch which is specially devoted 
to the dissemination of his work. This is the 
new propaganda, somewhat different from the 
former one, which had no sufficient basis. But 
now his system is fairly complete, though not 
finished ; it is ready for the planting. He can 
organize the Kindergarden with its Play-circle, 
its Play-gift, and its Play-song. Moreover, he 
can furnish materials from his little factory. 
Then, too, he has a small department of publica- 
tion, in which the literature of the new cause can 
be printed and disseminated. He has likewise a 
text-book for his training class, the keystone of 
his system, his Book of Mother Play-songs. 

(333) 



334 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

That which he has brooded over and worked over 
durmg the last four years in particular, must be 
scattered like seed throughout all Germany ; 
what he has found, he must impart. Thus 
equipped for his fresh attack upon the demons of 
Darkness, our hist Teutonic knight sallies forth 
from his Biankenburg (literally the Shining 
Castle) with his heart bent upon helping the 
most helpless of all creation, the little ones, the 
infants of humanity. 

The present period extends from 1844 to the 
end of Froebel's life in 1852. He is sixty-two 
years old ; at an age when most men think of 
retiring from the conflicts of existence, or at least 
of devoting themselves to a more quiet kind of 
effort, he plans his greatest, most active cam- 
paign. Single-handed he goes forth, aided only 
by the friends whom he can enlist in his cause, 
but not by any high patron, not by any great 
publisher, not by any influential School, or Uni- 
versity, or Church, or Association. If a society 
helps him, he has first to organize that society; 
if a teacher is to instruct in his doctrine, he has 
usually to train that teacher. Amid keen oppo- 
sition he pursues his career of planting ; for 
eight years he keeps up the struggle with uncon- 
querable valor, till he lies down to his final rest 
in the bosom of his primeval Mother. But he 
does his work, does it for once and for all, in 
spite of the heaviest blows of the Destroyer. 



THE KINDEBaABDEN PBOPAGATED. 335 

Nor must we forget, in the present record, the 
inner movement of Froebel's own development. 
The great trainer is himself to be put under train- 
ing just in this training period of his life ; ere he 
can reach to others the perfect flower of his soul, 
he too has to unfold, he must be sent to school. 
Very deeply absorbed he has been in the Idea, 
just a little too deeply ; he has lived in his doc- 
trine, excellent as it is, somewhat too partially 
and unreservedly ; he is in danger of becoming 
an abstraction and flying off into pure ether, 
where no mortal can follow him. Let him be 
brought back to life and to the individual in 
flesh and blood, sav the unseen rulino^ Powers 
which preside over his destiny and yours and 
mine. But what means are they going to 
use? 

Frederick Froebel, old as he is and good as he 
is, has to be dipped once more in the Fountain of 
Love — the Love of man and woman, the well- 
head and original of all Love, of God and of 
Man, on Earth and in Heaven — ere he can truly 
impart his doctrine with Love going out in over- 
flowino- measure to the child and to the race. A 
fresh baptism in the primordial sources of the 
human heart he has to have, for his own sake 
and for the sake of his cause ; then he will rise 
up re-born to youth and tireless activity and en- 
thusiasm ; then too he can train kindergardners 
with the consecration of the soul to love of the 



336 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

little child, which is his own, and which will 
beget an apostolic zeal in all his followers. 

Such is the inner discipline, the discipline of 
Love, which Froebel is still to pass through with 
its softening of the spirit, of the outward man- 
ner, even of the voice till his whole being ten- 
derly throbs in response to the least movement of 
that speechless little soul of the infant gazing 
into his face. Some time during these last days 
of his he will declare : ' ' The greatest thing I 
possess is that I am still a child in my old 
age." 

And the curious reader of the preceding narra- 
tive may possibly here inquire in advance : Is he 
now to be spared from that blow of Nemesis, 
which has hitherto appeared to be hanging over 
him everywhere, and which is always ready to 
descend upon him just at his happiest moment? 
Let the record tell, to which now we must at once 
proceed. 

I. 

The Wandering Propagandist. 

In July, 1844, Froebel makes a start from 
Blankenburg, his little isolated world, in which 
he has been penned for four years and longer, 
and enters the great world, which is henceforth 
to be the field, the seed-field of his endeavor. 
An insuppressible impulse to wander and to plant 
comes over him, he must give what he has gotten 



THE KINDEBQABDEN PBOPAGATED. 337 

or perish of an inner surfeit. With a light heart 
we may see him stepping along, his genius winged 
with the new Idea and upbearing him toward his 
goal. 

Something of the vagabond lay deep in the 
nature of Froebel, as in that of so many other 
prophets and seekers of the ideal. In every 
leading epoch of his life he was impelled to leave 
old surroundings and to wander to fresh pastures, 
always in search of something better, of some 
hio'her attainment for himself or for others. In 
his youth he meandered much till he reached 
Jena; there through many tortuous shiftings he 
came to Frankfort, and finally to Pestalozzi ; 
more recently he again wormed his way back to 
Switzerland. So hehasa:one zis^zaoforino^ throuo^h 
life, chiefly for the purpose of gaining and gath- 
ering; but now he wanders to plant, not to reap, 
and it is to be his last wandering on tliis planet, 
itself a kind of wanderer (planetes) of the skies 
outwardly, but, to inward vision, governed by 
strict law, which bids it always return to the be- 
ginning of its career (or orbit). 

The first place to which he bends his steps is 
Frankfort-on-the-Main, a city to which he con- 
tinually comes back when he wishes to make a 
fresh start. There it was that he once heard 
from Gruner the pivotal word of his whole 
career. Be a teacher; thence he sets out for 
Yverdon for his first training; thence, too, after 

22 



338 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

theKeilhau collapse, he goes forth with Schnyder 
to beofin life over ao^ain in Wartensee. And 
now, on crossing the little border of Blanken- 
burg, his soul's invisible magnet draws him to 
Frankfort as the starting-point for his last and 
greatest itinerary. He takes Middendorf along, 
his fellow-soldier for life, in this new war of liber- 
ation; he makes visits to old friends, he gives 
lectures, he puts fresh courage into the hearts of 
disciples, two of whom had already opened kin- 
dergardens at Frankfort — both of them men, 
be it noted. 

A start has been made, the two friends move 
forth on their journey, having Heidelberg as 
their present goal, seat of a famous University. 
On the way Froebel stops at a small place called 
Nieder-Ingelheim, long enough to fling out a 
handful of seed on a little patch of good soil. 
Arriving at Heidelberg he finds an old friend. 
Von Leonhardi, also a propagator, living solely 
for the purpose of propagating Krause's philo- 
sophic doctrines, having married not only 
Krause's philosophy, but what is far better, 
having married Krause's daughter, the lovely 
Sidonia, who once flitted across our path in 
Switzerland. Many reminiscences of that not- 
able visit which Froebel once paid to Krause at 
Gottingen, were brought up ; and the reader has 
not forgotten (we hope) the two unappreciated 



THE KINDEBGAEDEN PROPAGATED. 339 

geniuses who then met in deep sympathy and 
mutual consolation. 

Here Middendorf is compelled to separate from 
Froebel and return to Keilhau, for he had to 
think of bread, as he has a family and a large 
one, dependent on him. Froebel is a widower, 
solitary in the world ; let him sow a while by 
himself, picking up his food as he can, like the 
wandering birds of the skies. The separation 
from Heidelberg moves Middendorf to versify- 
ing, he sends back a little poem to his friends 
there, full of sweet little turns and emotional 
exclamations. He goes home by way of Darm- 
stadt where he finds friendly welcome ; this calls 
forth another poem Avhich has been printed. 

Thus Middendorf cannot help scattering 
rhymes along his path, in accord with his well- 
attuned nature, which spontaneously utters itself 
in verse. This tendency the reader may again 
bring to mind, as it is our view that Middendorf 
had a chief part in making the rhymes of the 
Mother Play-songs. In this journey and others 
Froebel seems to show no such bent. 

Froebel, now alone, passes to Darmstadt where 
there is a prospect of a new kindergarden. But 
he finds matters not yet prepared for him, so his 
restless spirit drives across the country into the 
valley of the Rhine, where he first comes to 
Mayence, and then moves up the river to Cologne. 
Unintermitted is his advocacy of the Idea; he 



340 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

even tackles the editor of the Cologne Gazette, 
and wrings out of the editorial sphinx at least a 
promise of support. He then Avheels about and 
returns ; at Wiesbaden he wins an important 
man, Dr. Schliephake, who will later do impor- 
tant service for the cause. Touching at Frank- 
fort, he again goes on to Darmstadt, and finds 
there one of his favorite kindergardners, who had 
in the meantime arrived to take charge of the 
work. Her name was Ida Seele, that is, Ida 
Soul, or Ida the soulful, of which name she was 
worthy, according to Froebel, whose love of pun- 
ning raji so deep that sometimes it appears ac- 
tually serious. 

And still the Darmstadt business seems not yet 
ready for him — something must be the matter. 
At any rate his impatience again drives him forth, 
this time in the opposite direction, toward the 
South; he visits Carlsruhe, Stuttgart, Heidelberg 
once more, talking, lecturing, playing, inspecting 
all the institutions for little children, planting the 
Idea in every soul that would listen. After this 
sweep around the adjacent country he comes back 
to Darmstadt for the third time, where he stays 
three months occupied in training kindergardners 
and ortjjanizino: the work. 

Here, however, he becomes involved in a con- 
flict with a Dr. Folsing, a popular writer on 
Infant Schools, and a practical worker in this 
field. At first the two agreed and co-operated, 



I 



THE inNDERGARDEy PROPAGATED. 341 

but finally fell to dissension and open rupture, 
which found expression in public print. Into 
this dispute we need not enter. Kindergardners 
have enough of such controvers}^ at their own 
doors, for are they not perpetually engaged in il- 
lustrating the law of opposites, with the mediation 
left out usually? Dr. Folsing objected to the 
name kindergarden, and to its methodical train- 
ing, both of which, however, have survived his 
attack. And where is he? His chief fame at 
present seems to rest upon his quarrel with Froe- 
bel. He succeeded, however, in keeping Froebel's 
kindergardner, Ida Seele, to whom the latter 
wrote afterwards a sharp reproof for her aban- 
donment of the name kinderofarden. 

During this period another activity of Froebel 
comes into prominence, that of founding socie- 
ties of men, and speciall}^ of fathers, for advanc- 
ing his educational ends. Previously he had 
expected his chief support to come from the 
women; now he seems to have dropped them 
and to have gone over to the men for help, since 
the new organizations appear to have been wholly 
made up of males. What is the matter? He 
seems to have lost his faith in the female unions, 
after the o^rand failure of the Blankenburs: 
scheme, in which the women were to raise the 
money for the stock, 100,000 thalers. Four 
years have passed since that time, small is the 
subscription, and still smaller the hope ; in fact, 



342 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL, 

it is phiin to all except Froebel himself, that 
even the Bhmkenburg kindergarden will have to 
be given up for lack of support. Really, that is 
the chief reason why Middendorf has had to 
hurry home. In the Blankenburg affair the 
wives had to endure much teasing from their 
husbands, and even from their own sex, so that 
they api^ear to have been stampeded and to have 
taken to flight, leaving poor Froebel in the lurch, 
literally poor, that is, penniless. The woman 
will courageously face danger, as everybody 
knows ; she will stand up before any kind of 
missiles, except one, the shafts of ridicule. 
When these begin to buzz about her ears, the 
female heart grows panicky ; she is sure to pick 
up her skirts and run to the nearest cover, with 
manifest sis^ns of demoralization. EvenanAma- 
zonian camp has been seen to fall into a state of 
wild uproar and consternation merely by the ex- 
plosion of a little bomb of laughing-gas thrown 
by a wag into its midst. And if a bold band of 
modern warrior maids fiffhtins^ for their riofhts 
cannot stand the little snapping and sizzling of a 
wit-cracker, what can be expected of modest Ger- 
man housewives of Blankenburg and vic'inity. 

So, the women having quit Froebel, Froebel 
has to quit the women. At least thus it is for a 
time, and the occurrence indicates a chans^e in 
the standpoint of the author of the Mother Play- 
songs^ who in that book places the mother in the 



THE KINDERQAEDEN PBOPAGATED. 343 

center of the family and makes her the sole edu- 
cator of her child, the father being quite left out. 
Still the mothers have not supported him in his 
great enterprise. So he turns and makes his 
new appeal to the fathers, organizing the above- 
mentioned societies with much labor and zeal. 

We may, however, here take a glance into the 
future and say that this project also is destined 
to an untimely end. As might be expected, he 
will , find the men harder to rouse than the 
women, he will discover that the fathers are 
more indifferent than the. mothers to his cause, 
which is that of infant education. About De- 
cember, 1844, he began the present work with 
the fathers, he will continue it for three or four 
years, and then will go back to the women. But 
it will be a new set, and he will have a new pur- 
pose ; from the training of the mother he will 
pass to the training of the kindergardner with 
her. new vocation in the social order. Whereof 
somethins: more will be said later on. 

Such was Froebel's first journey of propaga- 
tion ; he went throuoh the vallevs of the Rhine, 
Main, and Neckar, sowing his seed in many a 
city and village. It is noticeable that he has 
souo^ht to influence men chieflv, we read of but 
few women in this trip. But the male mind is 
not the most congenial soil for his Idea ; still 
this experience he has to pass through in order 
to know. The woman's soul is the true seedfield 



344 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

for him when he has rightly found her ; but this 
is not yet, though he is going thitherward. 
Amazing is the activity he has shown, a down- 
rioht outpour of exuberant youthful energy, 
phu'k and even hilarity ; he may well look back 
Avith delight on his journeyings overarched by 
rainbows of hope. Little or no gain did he 
gather from his efforts, quite satisfied to pick up 
his food, like the wandering fowls of the air, 
along the path of his migrations. 

But autumn has gone and winter is passing, 
he must turn his footsteps toward home. There- 
with the bright bow of promise rapidly vanishes 
into a dark, forbidding cloud. He has to quit 
Blankenburg, the cradle of the kindergarden, 
and its chief dwelling-place and center for seven 
years. , Such is the lamentable outcome of the 
grand speculation : the great German kindergar- 
den never got to be, and the little Blankenburg 
kindero^arden must cease to be. In floatino^ his 
bonds no fraud has been alleged, indeed the 
bonds were never floated to any extent. Froebel 
never would deceive anybody ; in fact he never 
possessed the power to deceive anybody but him- 
self, and this latter power he did possess in a 
very considerable degree. 

Then follows another disagreeable necessity : 
he must remove his kindergarden to Keilhau, if 
it is to continue its existence. It took all the 
gentle, persuasive eloquence of Middendorf to 



THE KINDEBGARDEN PROPAGATED. 345 

reconcile Froebel to such a step. But he could 
not help himself, for he had no money, and Barop 
was holding the purse-strings tight, had to do so, 
else Keilhau too would go to the wall, as it did 
not come out of the grand speculation unscathed. 
Such was the new move which had been resolved 
upon, and which had caused Middendorf to hurry 
home from Heidelberg, as he knew a storm was 
brewing. Barop' s course was justifiable, though 
Froebel at times would let fly the curse upon his 
head for parsimony and disloyalty. But both 
Barop and Middendorf now had families growing 
up, which could not be sacrificed to Froebel' s 
Idea. Very different was the situation at present 
from what it was twenty years ago in the first 
period of Keilhau, when both were .young men, 
single, capable of endurance. Then both did sur- 
render themselves to Froebel' s cause and suf- 
fered. No doubt the women of the families, 
particularly Frau Middendorf, added a vigorous 
protest aofainst vielding^ to the demands of Uncle 
Froebel, whose remorseless Idea they knew and 
feared as an all-devourinof Moloch for themselves 
and their children and their husbands. 

Under such circumstances the atmosphere of 
Keilhau could not have been pleasant breathing 
for Froebel. Still his other self, his Middendorf 
was there to help him, to shield him, to encour- 
age him in his great work, yea to perform a 
priestly mediatorial function for his friend's soul 



346 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

in moments of inner rending and deep despair. 
Froebel had been used to exercising authority 
unlimited; there was an imperious element 
deeply rooted in his character ; but now he feels 
restraint on every side just in the place where he 
was once absolute master ; he was treated with 
respect, and even with gratitude, still in all the 
arrangrements of the school there lurked a word 
of command : Hands off. Keilhau became to him 
a bed of thorns, or perchance in accord with its 
name, a real wedge driven by fate into his sensi- 
tive spirit. Then the training school there was 
not a success in spite of Middendorf's efforts, 
having but four pupils. 

Not many weeks did Froebel stay at Keilhau 
this time; apparently, as soon as he could scrape 
enough money together, he set out on another 
trip, April 19th, 1845, Ave find him at Dresden, 
being present at the wedding of Adolph Frank- 
enberg and Luise Herrman, two of his ardent 
disciples, who had founded a flourishing kinder- 
garden. They moved from old to new quarters 
while Froebel was there, he marching at the 
head of the procession of children bearing flow- 
ers and gifts. Luise Frankenberg, as she will 
henceforth be known, is deserving of mention as 
a very capable and devoted woman, Avho wove a 
thread of joy through the old man's life till its 
close. 

From Dresden Froebel goes to Halle, and 



THE KINDEEGABDEN PliOPAOATED. 347 

there he comes in contact with some Free Relief- 
ionists who hud taken an interest in the kinder- 
garden. Later this step was cited against him as 
indicating his theological views, and possibly did 
him some injury. But Froebel could not help 
being a friend to every friend of the Idea, be he 
Jew or Gentile. Froebel was preaching the 
Gospel of the little Child and would take all into 
his fold Avho declared their faith in that. To- 
ward the established church in Germany he prob- 
ably had no strong leaning, though he seems 
never to have broken with it outwardly. 

Again in 1846, as in the previous 3 ear Froebel 
is the wandering propagandist of his doctrine. 
He travels over a new territory, with his sower's 
sheet encompassing him round the heart, reach- 
inof forth his hand and scatterino- seed on all 
kinds of soil, fertile and barren, up and down 
the vallevs and over the hills, seekino- also to 
establish wherever he could a society of fathers 
for the blessing of their own children. 

After these summer excursions we find him 
back in Keilhau, November, 1846. He again 
starts his little training-class, which, however, 
shows decided improvement over the previous 
year, when he had only four pupils. Improve- 
ment specially in the quality of the applicants is 
marked — better preparation, greater abilit}', and 
the full measure of enthusiasm. Throufi^h such 
experience Froebel beoins to change back from 



348 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

the men to the women as the bearers of his light. 
His oroanizatioii of the fathers was but too 
phiinly a faihire. Out of that darkness, how- 
ever, a new luminary has begun its dawning. 
What is it? 

More phiinly does the future promise become 
visible in the training course of 1847-8. In this 
year's instruction three young ladies participated 
whose names must be mentioned, as they form, 
the fairest illuminated figures in this fresh sun- 
burst of Froebel's hope. Alwine Middendorf, 
Luise Frankenburg, and Luise Levin, are the 
three Graces, or the three Destinies, who gave 
Froebel his last decisive turn and sent him for- 
ward on his new career. For they now bring to 
his vision the ideal kindergardner as the future 
propagator and upholder of his work. Now the- 
thouo^ht stands clear before him that he must 
train tlie choicest young ladies of the land and 
the time to be his defenders and his apostles, not 
so much throuo^h the word as throus^h the deed. 
An apostolic band of missionaries, they will be- 
come faithful unto death and transmit his spirit 
to their successors. 

Undoubtedly Froebel had been training young 
ladies in his work for many years, indeed, quite 
from the beginning; but he seems to have re- 
garded them in a subordinate light, as nurses, 
attendants, companions for children. His mind 
w;as fixed on the mothers at first, then it passed 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 349 

to the fathers. But wow these three orifted, 
attractive, independent young women take hold 
of his work, and, co-operating in joint sympa- 
thetic effort, infuse into it a new spirit. Above 
all they teach Froebel himself a lesson which he 
at once starts to appl}^; in fact, he learns more 
than they do, much as they receive from his 
instruction. 

Personally the most fascinating was Alwine 
]Middendorf , veritably the daughter of her father, 
having inherited his imposing figure with all his 
charm of manner, and she had his large, blue, 
melting eyes, out of which '* streamed all the 
heaven of poetry." Also she was a favorite 
with her grand-uncle Froebel, and she seems to 
have been the only one of the family wdio took 
the kindero^arden trainino:. Then came Luise 
Frankenberg, whose marriage has been already 
mentioned. Well educated, the dauohter of a 
Professor, full of noble yearning ; she had left hus- 
band for a time, and her Dresden kindergarden, 
to listen to the prophet's own words of inspira- 
tion at Keilhau. Then there was the other 
Luise, most beloved of all, Luise Levin, who had 
already wound herself more deeply into Froebel' s 
life than any other pupil. Hereby hangs a tale 
which is hereafter to be told. 

In another respect it is claimed that Froebel, 
while teaching them, took an important lesson 
from these yountj: ladies. Like most German 



360 THE LIFE OF FRO E BEL. 

Avomen they were deft with the needle, skillful in 
sewing, weaving, knitting, netting, interlacing, 
and other fairy-fingered works. They soon 
learned what he had to give them in this line, and 
then gave him some glimpses into their own 
handiwork. Thereby his attention was directed 
to the so-called Occupations more than it ever had 
been, and this part of his system received many 
significant additions. Still it is a mistake to say 
that the Occupations were now used by him for 
the first time ; he had long known their educa- 
tive value, and employed some of; them* in the 
early days of Keilhau. Sewing, weaving, paper- 
folding, etc., appear in the plan of instruction 
for the school which he projected at Helba in 
1828. (48) 

A significant event in the life of Froebel dur- 
ing this period was the Teachers' Convention at 
Rudolstadt, in June, 1848. He had himself 
issued the call for the purpose of bringing his 
work and its object to the attention of the Ger- 
man pedagogical world. He distinctly declares 
in his prospectus his opinion that the kindergar- 
den should become a part of the Public School Sys- 
tem supported by the State. The education of 
children not yet of school age was to be the theme. 
He mentions his own work in this field, which he 
dates back ten years, to the beginning at Blan- 
kenburg (1837—8). It is also noteworthy that 
Froebel in this document signs himself the 



THE KINDERQABDEN PROPAGATED. 351 

principal of the School at Kcilhau, showing that 
he still laid claim to his former position in the 
Universal German Institute. 

The schoolmasters met and broke out into 
quite a lively skirmish all around. There was 
l)itter, prejudiced opposition, peppered with hate; 
there was a large number of honest seekers whose 
inquiries had a seasoning of doubt; there was a 
cohort of warm friends ready to meet any attack. 
Froebel was the center and chief spokesman; 
such a bombarding with questions he had never 
before experienced. The nature of play as a 
means of instruction would not lodo^e itself with 
any degree of comfort in the head of the Ger- 
man schoolmaster, who cannot help sharing in 
the military character of his government and of 
his absolute sovereio-n. Here on this side is in- 
struction with its method, its drill; there, on 
that side, is play, with its caprice, with its spon- 
taneity , devoid of all method. Oil and water 
will not mix. Your kinder o^arden will enofender 
a play-habit in school, and render difficult later 
instruction. So the battle swayed around in a 
kind of undulation, first for one and then for 
the other, the enemy reiterating, " We care not 
for your school in play, but we cannot have your 
play in school." 

Still, on the whole, victory remained with 
Froebel. His friends resolved to present his 
cause to the German National Assembly of 1848, 



352 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

then in session at Frankfort-on-the-Main. This 
duty was assigned to Middendorf, who conse- 
quently wrote his Uttle work on the kindergarden, 
which has been considered one of the best expo- 
sitions of the subject. 

There is no doubt, however, that this appeal 
to the German National Assembly, which was a 
product of the popular movement of 1848, caused 
offense to the existing powers. Thereby Froe- 
bel's name and the kindergarden became iden- 
tified with the free-thinkers, revolutionists, 
assailants of the established order, that restless 
element which still goes under the name of 
Forty-eighters. When the time of the re-action 
came, the counterstroke of this act followed, cul- 
minating in the prohibition of the kindergarden 
by Prussia. And it must be added that Froebel 
always did connect himself with the German 
folk-movement, rather than with German insti- 
tutions, though he never directly assailed the 
latter. 

And it should be added, for the sake of bring- 
ing to light the fatal chain of causation in which 
this innocent kindergarden for little children was 
getting itself involved, that Julius Froebel during 
these very days (October, 1848), was helping- 
Nemesis entanofle his uncle in her veno^eful net. 
He was ens^aoed in a revolutionary outbreak at 
Vienna, was taken prisoner, tried and condemned 
to death, but was permitted to escape on condi- 



THE KINDEBGARDEN PROPAGATED. 3o3 

tion of quitting Austria in twenty -four hours. 
He bore the name Froebel, was educated by 
Frederick Froebel at Keilhau, and was a member 
of the German National Assembly to which the 
appeal for the kmdergarden had been addressed. 
No wonder the family Froebel began to be en- 
circled by a red revolutionary glare, Avhich flashed 
the name in crimson colors all over Germany, 
since every important German newspaper must 
have heralded the facts above stated. (49) 

After the Teachers' Convention, Froebel was 
called to Dresden in October, 1848, throush the 
efforts of Luise Frankenberg who had gone home 
full of enthusiasm and sought to have every 
woman of her acquaintance listen to the prophet's 
wisdom. The result was a larger audience for 
Froebel than he had ever had. He formed a 
training-class, he gave instruction daily to three 
different divisions of pupils. A very busy man 
he was during this visit at Dresden. Some men 
also attached themselves to the cause, but not 
many. One of these must be mentioned : Bruno 
Mar quart, a man of great force and courage, who 
established a training-school for kindergardners 
in defiance of strong opposition, and later ( 1851) 
was editor of the Zeitschrift, a periodical devoted 
to the cause of Froebel, and containing some 
of his writings. 

A change in Froebel' s method of exposition 
became noticeable in his teaching at Dresden : he 

23 



354 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

was more systematic, he sought to connect his 
lessons by a more formal procedure than previ- 
ously. Hereby along with certain advantages 
came also some drawbacks. As he delved more 
deeply and formulated his work in abstract prop- 
ositions, his system became harder to under- 
stand, and required good preparation in the pupil, 
which she did not always have. But she too 
often thought she understood Froebel's philoso- 
phy, if she only learned his terms and could rat- 
tle them off with fluency. Hence it came that 
Froebel along with excellent kindergardners sent 
forth a goodly number of caricatures of himself — 
young ladies with considerable assumption, but 
with little wisdom. There are indications that 
Froebel saw the need of certain attainments in 
the applicant for his training, though he never 
enforced them. 

Froebel was occupied at Dresden during the 
winter of 1848-9. He had met with fair suc- 
cess, but was undergoing his own mental changes. 
First of all, he now felt that he must have his 
own permanent training-school in which he should 
be the supreme controller. To be attached to 
another school as a kind of pendant he could no 
longer suffer himself. Dresden could not give 
him an independent position, nor could Keilhau. 
His own institution in its own place, untrammeled 
by outside exigencies he must have, he will have. 
With some such resolve he quits Dresden. 



THE KINDEBOABDEN PBOPAGATED. 355 

Still further, this unsettled life of the wander- 
ing propagandist must be brought to a close, if 
for no other reason, on account of age. Sixty- 
seven years old and still roving, roving; I have 
sowed my seed, or perchance my wild oats; it is 
high time for me to settle down. For five years 
I have led this restless, peripatetic life; enough. 
I shall wind it up. I must give myself wholly 
to the trainino^ of the kinder o^ardner, creatins^ a 
new vocation for the woman in the social order — 
a vocation deeply consonant with her nature. 

No doubt, too, another and deeper purpose 
had entered his soul and was stirring him to the 
last and greatest effort of his life. This secret, 
all-compelling motive, mightier than any other, 
underneath all the rest, we must now set forth. 

II. 

Liebenstein — Luise Levin. 

Froebel has selected as the site of his new and 
independent training-school a well-known water- 
ing-place in Thuringia called Liebenstein, or 
Bath Liebenstein, on account of its springs 
which attracted summer guests from all over Ger- 
many. Beautiful mountain scenery surrounded 
the place on every side ; connected with the 
neio^hborhood were historic associations dear to 
the German heart. Here was the oak of St. 
Boniface, whose story reaches back to the great 



356 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

transition from Heathendom to Christianity ; here 
was the Luther fountain, out of which the great 
Reformer is said to have slaked his thirst ; in the 
town of Mohra not far away was his birth-place. 
And now the third great German Reformer has 
appeared, and proposes to begin his work in the 
same locality. 

Liebenstein, then, is the chosen spot, whose 
name sio^nifies the Rock of Love. It will vindi- 
cate its title to Froebel, who had an almost 
superstitious regard for the meaning of names. 
It is probable that he selected the place partly be- 
cause of its suggestive designation. Here was 
also the home of the ducal court of Meiningen 
during part of the season ; doubtless Froebel has 
an eye to securing its interest and influence for 
his work. So Liebenstein, the Rock of Love, is 
his newly chosen home. 

In the spring of 1849, after his winter's activ- 
ity in Dresden he had returned first to Keilhau. 
But he could stay there no longer ; more than 
ever the locality has become distasteful to him, a 
downright impossibility for the home which is 
now throbbing in every heart-beat. His claim is 
that the physical environment of Keilhau is un- 
suitable, that nature there is not friendly to a 
training-school for young ladies. These are bis 
words: *' In Keilhau such an institution could 
never prosper ; just look at the mountains and 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 357 

the surrounding landscape and feel with me: 
nature will not have it there." 

But we know other and stronger reasons why 
Keilhau was not acceptable. A tight rein was 
kept upon him financially ; where he was once 
absolute monarch, he was now a limited subject. 
It is true that Middendorf, his most devoted 
friend and disciple, was there; and principal 
Barop was well-disposed, though he had to be 
firm in money matters with the old man, whose 
irreclaimable tendency was to fling everything 
and everybody into the insatiate maw of the 
Idea. But the women of the household, his own 
nieces, the Froebel girls of the early Keilhau 
period, two of them mothers with children grown 
and growing-up, were not so tractable toward 
uncle Frederick ; they could not forget what they 
had gone through in the past under his adminis- 
tration , and they naturally felt some anxiety for 
the future of their offspring, of their husbands, 
and of themselves. 

And now must be mentioned the deepest 
reason, in fact the real though secret reason for 
the new establishment at Liebenstein : Froebel 
has decisively made up his mind to enter into the 
bonds of wedlock with one of his kindergardners, 
Luise Levin. She had already shown herself his 
most responsive pupil, and had given him the 
staunchest support in his work. She had made 
herself, as nearly as another individual could be, 



358 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

the complete incarnation and reflection of Fred- 
erick Froebel. Through the growth of years, 
adjusting herself to him as her ideal, she had 
become absolutely his female counterpart, and 
both had recognized the fact. There was but 
one thing left : they must seal this inner union 
by the vow which would incorporate and make 
them one before God and man. 

Such a self -transforming power the unlettered 
village maiden had shown — veritably a kind of 
transfiguration into the object of her love. 
Moreover, she had revealed another gift, very 
attractive to Froebel at his time of life : she was 
supremely the home-maker. She noticed his 
smallest wants, she observed just what he liked 
at table and how he liked it, she knew far better 
than he did wherein lay his comfort ; a divine 
atmosphere of peace she brought with her and 
threw about him as an enveloping yet invisible 
presence. No wonder the old rover concluded to 
wind up his peregrinations and stay at home, 
where he could breathe an air stimulating, yet re- 
poseful, and enjoy that wonderful elixir produc- 
ing a restful intoxication which the home-maker 
alone knows how to brew. 

The affair had been growing a good while. 
Already in the Keilhau household, where Luise 
Levin at first belonged to the department of 
female help in the kitchen, and where her rank 
was not much above that of a servant, the affin- 



THE KINDEBGARDEN PROPAGATED, 359 

itv luid been noticed by the women of the united 
families, with the skill of their sex for spying out 
such matters. Of course they were scandalized, 
outraged, horrified, at the idea of such an alli- 
ance. An old man, old enough to be her father ! 
He a distinguished personage, and that, too, a 
Froebel; she a common, ignorant country girl! 
Of course Luise Levin could not stay in that 
house any longer, subjected, as she must have 
been, to the never-ceasing small torture of female 
ingenuity. And we can understand thatKeilhau 
could not have been a pleasant place for uncle 
Frederick in the spring of 1849, when he re- 
turned from Dresden with such a resolution in 
his heart. Certainlv no " unification of life " 
could be celebrated at Keilhau on such a stormy 
background. 

The career of Luise Levin is an impressive 
chapter in the life of Froebel. Born in the town 
of Osterode, in the Harz country, which was also 
the birth-place of the Froebel girls, she was their 
early playmate and neighbor. They moved to 
Keilhau in 1820, when she was five years old; 
but her connection with their family was never 
broken, especially with the youngest of the 
daughters, Elise Froebel, w^hose age was nearly 
that of her own. 

It may be said that she otcw to womanhood 
^vith the name of Frederick Froebel in her ears, 
and the thoug^ht of him in her heart. He had 



360 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

first seen her as a little child 18 months old when 
he was on a visit in Osterode at his brother's; 
as an infant he may have picked her up in his 
arms, clasped her to his bosom, and kissed her. 
She had heard a great deal about uncle Frederick 
from the two sons of Christian Froebel, as they 
frequently made little trips back to Osterode to 
see their friends. They told of the wonderful 
deeds done by the boys at Keilhau, of the jour- 
neys, of the songs, of the work bodily and men- 
tal; they gave her some toys made there, which 
were her delight. Doing her task in her humble 
station, she grew to be a woman ; but an ideal 
had been generated in her soul intimately bound 
up with the personality of Froebel ; and an aspira- 
tion had dawned in her heart which was uncon- 
sciously working for fulfillment. She communed 
with him, having caught his spirit without seeing 
him ; she knew him many years before she ever 
came into his presence. 

Thus she served her long apprenticeship of 
consecration to an ideal, a kind of nun with a 
self-imposed vow, performing the simple duties 
of her home-life in the town of Osterode. Yet 
her face was always turned toward Keilhau as 
her Mecca, in some secret hope or prayer that 
she might yet reach the abode of her prophet. 
Thus her young days passed, in the silent disci- 
pline of the home and of the ideal, testing her 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 361 

endurance and really moulding her character. 
But will the probation never end? 

Yes; in July, 1845, the hour of her release 
strikes, and she sets out for Keilhau, on a visit, 
or rather on a pilgrimage, to what she at least 
deemed the sanctuary of her life. She was 
thirty years old, the flower of youth had quite- 
passed ; it was twenty -five years since the Froe- 
bel orirls had left Osterode, still she was ofoino- 
to visit them, for did not that furnish the ofreat 
opportunity? She sees Froebel, obtains an in- 
terview — not a difficult matter ; she asks him 
certain questions about what she should do in the 
future, to which the old man responds with 
friendly, fatherly advice, suitable to the occasion. 

But her resolution was secretly fixed on 
staying at Keilhau. How could she now leave? 
She takes service in the two families which con- 
stituted the household of the school; she is will- 
ing to become a menial, a very slave if need 
.be, in the ministry of her ideal. 

But now comes a harder, sorer trial. She soon 
discovers the unpleasant situation of Froebel at 
Keilhau. She sees that he is no lonsfer the head 
of the school; she observes the restraint put 
upon him, and feels the fetters in her own soul. 
She notes the opposition of the women, the Froe- 
bel girls, to their uncle and his plans; she over- 
hears their twittings, their sly disparaging 
remarks, not intended for the outside world, 



362 TEE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

yet painfully significant of the inside attitude 
of that household. She states that she saw 
one day Froebel, Middendorf and Barop walk- 
ing up and down the yard in excited conversation. 
She stood and gazed: What's the matter? Says 
Frau Middendorf, with a spice of malice: 
** Uncle wants more money to propagate his ideas, 
but Barop will not let him have any." 

Strong yet suppressed sympathy was roused 
in her heart by this situation of Froebel. So 
complete was her oneness with him that his sor- 
rows echoed through her soul with an intense 
longing to help. But what could she do? In 
silence wait for the hour of deliverance. 

Thus her first year passed, with a still tongue, 
yet with the heart aflame. In the following year 
(1846) Froebel was teaching a small class of 
young ladies the doctrines of the kindergarden. 
Luise Levin succeeded in gettins^ one of these 
young ladies to repeat to her at odd hours his 
lectures. She hardly understood them in an 
intellectual sense, but in another way she absorbed 
them immediately; she accepted them as her 
gospel, as a kind of sacred word which can be 
received only by faith. Not through the intel- 
lect, but through the heart, she took up into her- 
self all that Froebel was, she became the female 
Froebel. 

She obtained a copy of his Mother Play-songs, 
which he used as the basis of his lectures. She 



TEE KINDEBGABDEN PROPAGATED. 363 

would turn over its leaves, look at the pictures, 
listen to its songs which seemed to sing in her 
very soul. At once she entered into its idea, and 
exclaimed : ' ' How beautiful I ' ' This was spoken 
in the presence of Frau Middendorf , who injected 
into that happy moment an utterance smacking 
of the bitterness of the Keilhau household : ' ' No 
doubt^ and it has cost money enough ; more, in 
fact, than Avill ever come out." 

Thus we catch many a little echo of the domes- 
tic environment of Froebel at this time. But 
such unfriendly words only confirmed the devo- 
tion of Luise Levin ; she saw the lofty purpose 
of the man, his heroic loyalty to an Idea. It 
was like her own life, and she resolved to be herself 
the more loyal, in order that she might be worthy 
of him . Yery uncongenial is that household get- 
ting to be, with its sly thrusts and snarls at uncle 
Froebel, his impecunious condition, his unremu- 
nerative work, his steadfast pursuit of the Idea. 

And now, on the other hand, the fact must be 
noted that Froebel in turn is beo^innino^ to find 
her, he has started to casting deeply interested 
glances that way — toward Luise Levin, seem- 
ingly the only woman in that household who had 
any genuine love for him personally, or any real 
appreciation of his work. On her birth-day 
(April 15th, 1847,) he gave her a present and 
with it sent some verses. What does it mean? 
A little suspicious, old fellow! Making poetry 



364 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

and giving presents to that woman ! Is it simply 
gratitude for the strong sympathy and for the 
hundred little favors which she has shown thee 
in spite of hostile surroundings during the last 
two years? 

Yes, gratitude and something more, something 
far stronger, more compelling. Froebel in his 
advanced years is to experience Love, is to be 
put under its discipline. Homeless he has roamed 
through the land, but now he is to find a home, 
which he once seemed to have quite renounced in 
his absorbing devotion to the Idea. Unappeas- 
able, almost pitiless he is becoming in his pursuit 
of the one great object; he must be brought 
back, he must be made more human, that abstract 
world of his must be filled with life's deepest 
throb. This the providential Powers which stand 
guard over his life have decreed as necessary, 
deeply necessary for him and for his cause. 

It must be looked upon as a most important 
and beneficial event in his career when the old 
Froebel began to grow warm and young with the 
love of Luise Levin. In thinkins^of a home for 
her and for himself, he thinks of a home for his 
kindergarden, its chief need just now; his new- 
born Love will beget the true spiritual atmos- 
phere for his workers, very different from that 
of Keilhau, which he feels more and more 
deeply to be an impossible place for his new 
task. 



THE KINDERGARDEN PROPAGATED. 365 

So Froebcl, having completed his .sj^stcm, has 
now to complete himself. He has wandered far 
and wide scattering his seed, but now he must 
focus his soul afresh in the burnino^ center of a 
divine passion. He has trained others in the 
past, but the trainer is now himself to be put 
under training, the training of Love, ere he can 
impart to his disciples the deep human affection 
for the child which lies at the basis of their 
vocation. 

Such were the forces secretly at work during 
that spring of 1847. Luise Levin is determined 
to be a kindergardner, and she resolves to take 
the course at first hand from the master. She 
joins the class of 1847-8, which has been already 
noticed as forming an epoch ia Froebel's work, 
and now Ave may see more deeply the reason. 
She was one of the three famous pupils who 
caused in Froebel's soul the dawning of the ideal 
kindergardner, whom he was thenceforth to pre- 
pare with all diligence for her new-made place in 
the world's order. But she could no lono^er be 
an inmate of the Keilhau household, with that 
outlook growing clearer every day. In company 
with Luise Frankenburg she occupied a room in 
a peasant's hut, from which she issued forth to 
her daily lesson, beaming a peculiar halo round 
her face, which made the old teacher's heart leap 
with youthful delight the moment she came into 
his presence. 



36G THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

Thus Luise Levin goes to school to Froebel, 
but in a deeper sense he goes to school to her. 
An ideal she has too, has had all her life, but an 
ideal completely interpenetrated and transfused 
with Love. So, if he has much to give her, she 
has even more to give him, and the grandeur of 
the man is that he knows it and acts on it, in 
spite of all the world and its evil tongues. Luise 
Levin has taken up and become transfigured into 
Frederick Froebel with his ideal, but now Fred- 
erick Froebel is to take up and become trans- 
fio^ured into Luise Levin with her Love. Such is 
the training for and the prelude to the last great 
epoch of his life. (50) 

The course finished, Froebel longed to get 
away from Keilhau, and she had no wish to stay, 
particularly without him. In the summer of 
1848, he concluded to make the tour of the 
neio^hborino; Thurino^ian towns, scatterino^ some 
seed in that way. But what was to become of 
her? Why should she not go along? She pos- 
sessed a peculiar excellence in the games, and a 
rare gift in dealing with children ; she could 
illustrate Froebel' s lectures by living pictures of 
the little ones at play. Then there was another 
reason for their traveling together, which need 
not here be pressed. The season was a success 
in one way at least, and of course they had a 
good time.' But she could never go back to 
Keilhau after such a journey, which was re- 



THE KINDERGABDEN^ PROPAGATED. 367 

garded by the women there as something a little 
too much in the nature of an escapade. And 
Frpebel himself must have felt less inclination 
than ever to face the music of the tono^ues of 
that household. 

The summer ended, there had to be a tempo- 
rary separation. He obtained for her a good 
position at Rendsburg, near Hamburg, where he 
saw her again about Christmas. He completed 
his peregrinations for the Avinter with a longing 
heart. When the Spring began to breathe 
warmly on the Thuringian hills, and the flowers 
beo^an to bloom and the birds beo^an to sino^, he 
had chosen a nest for his mate, a home for his 
training-school and for his heart. We find him 
settled at Liebenstein, the Rock of Love, already 
in April, 1849. 

The class begins and is at work, but Luise 
Levin is not there, she is still detained in her 
position at Eendsburg. Froebel has a grand- 
niece with him (Hehriette Breymann, afterwards 
the distinguished Frau Schrader of Berlin), who 
is a good pupil and an excellent house-keeper 
and all that; but all that is not enough. So he 
writes urgent letters to Luise to give up her 
place and to hasten to Liebenstein, which with- 
out her is no Rock of Love. Accordingly in 
July, 1849, she appears and takes possession, 
Froebel hailing her arrival with a joy in 
his countenance which gleams like a mir- 



368 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

I'or, reflecting the most cherished purpose of 
his heart. 

And now we must correct a possible misappre- 
hension. The reader is not to think that Froe- 
bel's phice stands upon some high eminence 
called Liebenstein, overlooking the world below 
in loftj serenit}^ like a medieval castle, whose 
lord he is with his lady Luise. On the contrary 
his training-school is situated in an ordinary 
farm-house not far from Bath Liebenstein, the 
watering-place which gives name to this region. 
A very ordinary farm-house it is, surrounded by 
stables; cowpens, and pigsties in close quarters, 
quite like the home of the German farmer every- 
where. This place Froebel has rented for the 
summer, and the persistent band of young ladies 
has followed through all obstacles, not the least 
of which is the never -failing odor which rises 
from the premises, and penetrates the happy 
class-room. Teacher and pupils get used to it, 
but the untrained visitor who conies to see the 
work cannot help noticing this quality of the 
atmosphere of the school, and reporting it. Espe- 
cially the fine lady, even the Duchess, majecti- 
cally descending from the elegant rooms of the 
hotel at Bath Liebenstein, into that cow yard,, is 
compelled to an unremitting use of fan and hand- 
kerchief, as she listens to the prophet expounding 
the Idea utterly oblivious of all finite things. 
Whereof some o^ood stories are told. 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PROPAGATED. 369 

But this is a small matter amid tliiiiors eternal. 
The love for Luise Levin showed in many ways 
its transforming power over Froebel's life. A 
true renewal came into his days, a veritable reju- 
venescence ; a deeper meaning the home had for 
him, with a fresh, more vital penetration into the 
nature of the family ; more completely and more 
concretely the function of woman in the education 
of the race rose up to his vision. So much and 
more the conduct of the simple unlettered village- 
maiden of Osterode taught him by her love, 
into whose creative fountains the o^enius of his 
destiny, working with him for his and the world's 
blessing, has had to dip him even in his old age. 

So Froebel has quit Keilhau forever, having 
made it one of the famous schools of the world. 
And Luise Levin has gone, too, unable there to 
fuimi that which she now knows to be her first 
duty, the duty to Love. Only one person in the 
Keilhau household appreciated her devotion to 
Froebel, and that was a man, AVilhelm Midden- 
dorf , who had something of the same spirit of 
consecration to his friend. For he loved Froebel 
in his way as deeply as she loved Froebel in her 
way. To Middendorf Froebel was the incarna- 
tion of the Godlike, as much as mortal can be ; 
the two souls during a Hfe-time of fellowship 
had become not merely intertwined, but abso- 
lutely intergrown and inseparable, the Siamese 
twins of the spirit. So ^liddendorf could under- 

24 



370 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

stand and deeply sympathize with that lonely 
woman in her consecration, which so strongly 
told back to him his own. 

III. 

Llebenstein — The Baroness. 

And now a new woman, belonging to a very 
different class of society, of quite another order 
of mind and of attainments, yet with a devotion 
equally great in her way, makes her appearance 
one day at Froebel's Liebenstein, and, after 
briefly witnessing the work and the spirit there, 
hears within herself the compelling inner call of 
her life, takes the sacred vow to her own soul, 
and at once begins her novitiate at the Rock 
of Love. 

Froebel had already arrived at Liebenstein and 
was busily engaged in his task, gathering the 
peasant children together and playing with them 
his games, in which employment he was assisted 
by the young ladies whom he was training to be 
kindergardners. Up the hills and through the 
woods the happy band danced and sprang, in 
which sport the gray-haired leader never failed 
to do his part, a child still among children. It 
was indeed a strange sight; no wonder every 
person passing along would stop and gaze and 
ruminate. Already the unusual proceedings of 
that man had been noised about the neighbor- 



TEE KlNDERGAItDEN PROPAGATED. 371 

hood; here is one report which has become 
famous : — 

*' At the end of May, 1849, I arrived at Bath 
Liebenstein in Thuringia and took quarters in 
the house where I had stayed the previous year. 
On greeting my hmdhidy, she told me the fol- 
lowing piece of news : a man had taken up his 
abode some weeks before at a neighboring farm- 
house, whose custom was to dance and play with 
the village children, for which reason people 
called him the old fool.'' 

Such is the striking passage with which the 
Baroness Von Marenholtz-Biilow begins her book 
called the *' Reminiscences of Frederick Froe- 
bel," truly an overture or suggestive prelude 
which gives the dominant tone to her writing. 
Evidently there are two Liebensteins ; one is full 
of distinguished guests, people of fame, and au- 
thority, and high birth, and worldly fashion : this 
we may call Bath Liebenstein, the watering place. 
The other is Froebel's Liebenstein, located in 
that humble farm-house, not fashionable, with- 
out influence, without fame, ridiculed, despised; 
sui rounded with stables, reeking with the odor of 
horses and cattle, and in close proximity to them, 
it vividly calls to mind that other stable in 
whose mano^er the Light of the World was 
born, Earth-encompassing and Time-illuminating. 

Thus the Baroness has caught and repeated 
the echo which Froebel's Liebenstein is produc- 



372 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

incr through the corridors and boudoirs of Bath 
Liebenstein. She goes on to tell how she met a 
few days afterward a tall spare man, whose name 
even she did not know, advanced in years, as his 
long gray hair plainly told, but playing vigor- 
ously with a group of peasant children, most of 
whom were bare-footed and poorly clad. The 
loving devotion and patience with which he man- 
acled his little ones, as well as the whole 
spirit and bearing of the man brought tears 
into the eyes of her attendant, and also of the 
Baroness herself, whereat she speaks the pro- 
phetic words, and for her own future career deeply 
significant: " They may call him the old fool, 
but he is probably one of those men who are by 
contemporaries ridiculed or stoned, but to Avhom 
posterity rears monuments." 

Plainly can we see by these words that in the 
soul of the Baroness Froebel's Liebenstein is 
becoming connected with Bethlehem. Uncon- 
sciously she has spoken not merely the utter- 
ance of deep sympathy, but of still deeper 
consecration; a mighty response within is taking 
phice on the spot. Of course she must talk to 
such a man, it is the opportunity of a life-time. 
She addresses him in a friendly manner ; they 
converse together, the result is an invitation to 
his farm-house, which lies justacross the meadow 
yonder, where he will show her his play -gifts 
for children, and explain their meaning. 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 373 

The Baroness reports his declaration that 
•' the destiny of nations lies far more in the 
hands of women — the mothers — than in the 
hands of rulers." But in the education of the 
child we must go beyond the physical mother ; 
we have at present to think of preparing the 
second or s})iritual mother for her task — the 
kindergardner who is to co-operate with the for- 
mer, and whose training is henceforth the su- 
preme object. Says he : " We must now educate 
the educatress herself, without whom the new 
generation cannot fulfill its function." This 
was the burden of all his thoughts, the outcome of 
all his remarks ; this was the f ar-reachins: con- 
ception to whose realization he was devoting his 
days ; in proof of which behold here in this 
farm-house fourteen young ladies whom he has 
inspired with his idea, and whom he is train- 
ing to the new vocation of their sex, life-renew- 
ing, race-transforming. 

As the man spoke, his peculiarities came to 
lio^ht. He was often difficult to understand. 
He clothed his thoughts in a strange nomencla- 
ture; his sentences would become involved at 
times in a hopeless granmiatical tangle, he would 
often repeat himself, and often before completing 
his proposition he would dash off in a wholly 
new direction. Still he revealed his wealth of 
originality; full of far-flashing gleams, of deep 
intuitions was the man, and of irresistible earn- 



374 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

estness. " I knew that I had before me a true 
man, with an uncorrupted, original nature." 
Certainly here is strong, deep attraction, and 
that too at first sight ; she has gotten a glimpse 
of the real Liebenstein, the Eock of Love. But 
the name of this man she does not yet know ; at 
last she picks it up from the mouth of a pupil 
whom she hears calling him Herr Froebel. 

Suph was the first acquaintance of the Baro- 
ness with Froebel — she of aristocratic birth, hav- 
ing a long ancestral pedigree, of great personal 
dignity, and endowed, it must be confessed, with 
no small share of hio'h-bred hauohtiness in her 
disposition. No longer young — she is forty-two 
years old at this time — she looks on these un- 
pretentious kindergardners taking lessons there 
in the farmhouse, and a great, sudden upheaval 
from the very foundation of her being takes 
place, followed by quick resolution. On the first 
day of her acquaintance, before she leaves the 
house, she announces to Froebel: "I wish to 
become one of your pupils." 

And now daily the high-born dame can be seen 
passing from Bath Liebenstein to Froebel' s Lie- 
benstein, where she takes her place among Froe- 
bel' s home-spun girls, listening to the words of 
the master, and specially absorbing his philo- 
sophic doctrine. Then again behold the lofty 
lady coming down from her courtly dignity and 
playing with Froebel' s little barefooted raga- 



THE KINDERGAIWEN PliOPAGATED. 375 

muffins, singing and dancing with them through 
the woods and the fields. Certainly a marvelous 
act of self-humiliation on the part of that blue- 
blooded German aristocrat, a class not specially 
distinguished for its humility — what does it all 
mean? 

Thus she is getting her reward, the supreme 
earthly reward — the inner liberation of her fet- 
tered spirit. She has heard what is for her the 
word of life ; she has seen the deed which she is 
to do for the enfranchisement of her enthralled 
soul. She is learning from Froebel to compel 
Fate, hitherto the tyrant of her life. She has 
has had her domestic sorrows, yea, if report be 
true, domestic horrors, which she has bravely 
withstood, yet with deep sadness and disappoint- 
ment. A strong consciousness, too, she has of 
a talent never realized, of a vocation never ful- 
filled. There is no doubt that she came to Bath 
Liebenstein broken in body and spirit, with the 
better half of her life hopelessly lost, according 
to all appearances. But in a celestial hour she 
takes that walk which leads her to the other Lie- 
benstein, of whose waters she drinks; great, 
almost instantaneous, is the change, a sudden 
whirl and movement not merely toward physical 
health, but toward an inner recovery and regen- 
ation. For she has rounded the corner and has 
already started on the road toward a new exist- 



376 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL, 

ence when she can utter those words : * ' I wish 
to become one of your pupils." 

And now we may imagine the lofty dame tak- 
ing her place at the low, long table in the large 
room of that farm-house, seated on a small 
wooden chair, along with the rest of the girls, 
enduring every inconvenience and discomfort — 
she, the Baroness, reared in luxury, accustomed 
to lounofe on silk-cushioned divans, and uh;ed to 
the fragrance of the boudoir, quite different from 
that of her present surroundings. 

Such is the discipline of life which the Baro- 
ness brinofs to her work with Froebel. But she 
has great attainments in other directions, greater 
than Froebel himself. First of all, she is the 
woman philosopher ; she shows thorough training 
in philosophy, and a decided aptitude for it, with 
a marked power of philosophic expression. Her 
education, chiefly the work of private tutors from 
the University, lay, not so much in the creative, 
as in the authoritative epoch of modern German 
philosophy, specially of Hegel. Froebel' s stay 
at Jena, as has been pointed out, was in the midst 
of its creative epoch. The Baroness, therefore, 
has profound philosophic culture, of a Hegelian 
cast, as we think, and strongly characteristic of 
her time and people. It is on this side, more 
than on any other, that she will hereafter ex- 
pound the doctrines of Froebel. 

Then her early education as a lady of the court 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 377 

has given her the mastery over the chief Euro- 
pean knguages, for which likewise she shows 
decided talent. This attainment will select her 
as the apostle of Froebel in foreign lands ; she 
will go as a missionary to most of the countries 
of Europe — France, England, Belgium, Italy — 
on a grand tour of propagandism, speaking and 
writing in the tongues of all these peoples, for 
the cause of her master. 

Moreover she has a natural bent for pedagogy, 
a born love of teaching. No little experience too 
in pedagogical matters ; she has superintended 
the education of her step-children with great dili- 
gence and interest, seeking to learn educational 
methods through books and conversation with 
distinguished educators. Education was her de- 
light, perchance her hobby. 

Nor must we forget to mention the fact that 
she was also a woman of society, acquainted with 
nearly every person of importance in the various 
German governments, knowing all the subtle 
ways of securing court influence for her projects, 
diplomatic, insinuating, and prodigiously persist- 
ent. Herein she will perform services altogether 
out of the reach of any other person connected 
with Froebel' s work. 

Such was the new disciple, greatest of them 
all, which a chance hour, yet filled with a provi- 
dential purpose, has led to Froebel. A great 
boon to him, but a greater to her; she recognizes 



378 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

the fact with its duty, and at once starts on her 
task. She is to turn Bath Liebenstein down to 
Froebel's Liebenstein, that it quaff of the fountain 
of healing there ; she seeks to make every guest 
do what she has done, in order that all may get 
what she has gotten. 

The first class whom she will seek to interest 
in Froebel's work will be the ruling powers of 
the country, the high dignitaries, Duke, Duchess, 
Princesses. She will even succeed in getting 
Froebel invited to dine with their Highnesses and 
to expound his doctrine to them. 

Then follows a line of lesser lights which she 
conducts continually to Froebel ; Prime Minis- 
ters, Councillors of State, Professors from the 
University, famous educators, high officials of 
all sorts, together with distinguished and influen- 
tial untitled people she whirls in an incessant 
daily stream to Froebel's school. Of course 
many find something to criticise, not a few be- 
come afiiicted with secret laughter, hardly any- 
body will understand. But she will explain him, 
defend him, excuse him, yet in a very gentle way 
acknowledge his faults. She will proclaim him 
as the bearer of a great new Idea, which he must 
realize or be faithless to his destiny. She will 
have to apologize for his surroundings, in partic- 
ular for his coat, which is of the old German 
pattern, resembling that of the village school- 
master now seen in the most retired nooks of 



THE KINDERGAIiDEN PROPAGATED. 379 

Germany. She will feel outraged when the well- 
dressed summer butterfly of Bath Liebenstein 
makes fun of him, and if need be, she will settle 
the matter by a keen thrust of her woman's rapier, 
the tonofue. 

Thus she continues her propagandism, tactful, 
unwearied, amiably persistent, yet combative 
when necessary; she chooses her people, those 
who ought to go, extorting a promise often un- 
willing, but the easiest way out; a few who flatly 
refuse she leads to the farm-house by stratagem. 
In the most charming Avay she giv^es them no 
peace till they get rid of her in the only possible 
manner, by an excursion to Froebel. She would 
join parties taking walks through the mountains, 
and by a dexterous detour would bring them 
down into Froebel' s barnyard. She had to 
stand no little teasing and some rebuffs; no 
matter, she goes on with her undismayed prose- 
lytizing. 

So she captures, for instance. Dr. Gustav 
Kiihne, a o^reat man in literature, editor of one 
of the leading literary periodicals of Germany, 
who could scatter the doctrine far and wide, and 
hence a man whom she must win at all hazards. 
On her first solicitation he said he had come to 
this watering place, not to study educational 
methods but to rest and enjoy himself. Still 
she devises a way to lead him to Froebel, so that 
in the end he notices the kindergarden in his 



380 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

widely-read periodical, and, as it would seem, 
influences one of his nieces to take the training. 

So for three seasons the Baroness continues, 
seeking to make converts to the new Idea, among 
the summer visitors, turning the stream from 
Bath Liebenstein down to Froebel's Liebenstein. 
Very important were these men in their day, the 
2;Teat ones of the world; excellent people, no 
doubt, the most of them — but where are they 
now? Almost wholly vanished, the entire set of 
them — these Prime Ministers, Privy Council- 
lors, Dukes, Duchesses, Professors and Authors. 
But the man whom they looked down upon, 
obscure, located in a farm-house, has become a 
light illumining the world, growing brighter year 
by year. The ephemeral and the eternal — such 
seems to be the difference between Bath Lieben- 
stein and Froebel's Liebenstein. 

Another favorable occurrence in these days 
must be recorded. It so befell that not many 
weeks after the Baroness had met Froebel, the 
greatest educator of Germany, Adolph Diesterweg 
came to Bath Liebenstein. Editor of a most in- 
fluential teachers' periodical, writer of famous 
educational books, for many years head of the 
chief Prussian Normal School, he undoubtedly 
stood next to Pestalozzi in the German pedago- 
gical world, with whose name his was often 
coupled in honor. The Baroness, seeing him, 
thought to herself: That is just the man I 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 381 

must get for my Froebel. Off she starts and 
salutes Diesterweg, whom she knew previously — 
she seems to know everybody — and tells him 
by way of introducing her subject, the story of 
the old fool ^ at which he had a hearty laugh. 
Then she comes at once to the main point : Early 
to-morrow morning you must go with me to 
Froebel' s class. 

Diesterweg tries to excuse himself. He has 
heard vaguely of this new doctrine, he does not 
like play in school. But the disciple is ready 
for him, she answers all his objections with 
knowledge, for she has now been a student some 
weeks, and he does not know the subject. No 
possible chance against her ; so Diesterweg sub- 
mits with resignation, saying, "Very well, to- 
morrow I shall go with you wherever you may 
lead." 

The time comes, though the new school-boy is 
somewhat late. They arrive at the place, the 
class has already begun, the two slip in and 
listen to Froebel' s exposition, as he stands in the 
midst o{ his pupils. At first the face of Diester- 
weg showed streaks of irony, which, however, 
gradually vanished into deep attention and admir- 
ation. After the close of the lecture, the Baro- 
ness introduced the two men to each other, who 
spoke together with strong, mutual admiration 
and sympathy. So absorbed was Diesterweg that 
she had to remind him that the dinner hour was 



382- THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

at hand, and they must think of returning to 
their hotel. On the way back Diesterweg would 
walk a little and then stop a little (he was a thick, 
heavy-set man), always talking of the wonderful 
teacher and his profound insight into the nature 
of children. And she reports that tears came 
into the eyes of the strict methodical pedagogue 
at the thino^s he saw and heard — an unusual dis- 
play of emotion on his part. Diesterweg himself 
was at that time an object of persecution and 
disparagement; how could he help seeing some- 
thins^ of his own life in the man before him? 

Thus a good beo^innino^ has been made, but a 
new duty has dawned upon the first schoolmaster 
of all Germany, that land of schoolmasters, and 
this it is : he must asrain 2:0 to school. He se- 
cures a copy of the text-book, " The Mother 
Play-songs," and begins his study. No more 
tardiness ; he is now the good school-boy. Every 
morning almost he would appear promptly under 
the window of the Baroness' room and cry out: 
" Frau von Marenholtz, it is time to go to 
school." So Diesterweg also, the greatest edu- 
cator of his time, has come down from Bath Lie- 
benstein and joined the unpretending band of 
kindergardners ; moreover, he, too, the stout, 
short-breathed man skips and hops through the 
fields and woods with Froebel's little bare-footed 
ragamufiins — thirty to forty of them. 

So the mornings passed, but in the afternoons 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 383 

the two men would take lono^ walks tooether con- 
versing on educational topics and on the times, 
with which both of them were sympathetically 
somewhat at odds. Also plans were laid for pro- 
pagating the Idea. But behold them walking 
alongside of each other, the two illustrious 
schoolmasters: Diesterweg, thick rather than 
tall, corpulent, round-faced, round-nosed, with 
a jovial look, having a tendency to universal 
rotundity, spherical in feature, cylindrical in 
trunk and in the totality of him; Froebel on the 
contrary, long, thin, wiry, bony, straight-lined, 
sharp-nosed, with a tendency in every part of his 
body to shoot into the rectilineal like a crystal, 
everything about him seeming to run into long 
riffht lines — long; coat swashino^ about his long 
legs, long hair down his long neck, long nose, 
and it must be confessed, excessively long, large 
ears. No wonder that Froebel in his Gifts has put 
such stress upon the rectilineal, he has simply 
produced himself in them. If Diesterweg had 
made a set of Gifts, they would certainlv have 
been curvilineal. Still these two war-horses of 
education, the short and the tall, the long and 
the round, the short-stepping and the far-strid- 
ing, are now harnessed together into a team, 
quite inseparable, deeply affectionate and re- 
sponsive, and so they go, down the road and 
over the hills, through the halls and grounds of 
Bath Liebenstein, ever together, talking, talking, 



384 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

whereat onfe of the sharp-tongued glittering dra- 
gon-flies of the Bath gives them a jingling nick- 
name from German story hind, calling them 
*' Eisele and Beisele," which jingle will produce 
an echo in every empty head of tlie place, 
followed by titter and tattle. 

Thus Diesterweg is completely won, he becomes 
a zealous co-worker in the cause of Froebel and 
remains so ever afterwards. He was a man who 
had suffered for his ideas, for his advanced views ; 
he was just then suffering for them ; he was too 
liberal for the Prussian Government, now in a 
strong tide of reaction ; in this very year of 
1849 he was displaced from the headship of the 
Normal School after many years of devotion and 
successful service. Mellowed by his experience 
he came to Bath Liebenstein for a little recuper- 
ation ; he met this old man who was also giving 
his life to an educational ideal, and seeking to 
realize it in a humble farm-house, under the most 
adverse circumstances, to which those of Diester- 
weg bore no comparison. It is the greatness of 
Adolph Diesterweg that he, the first educator of 
Germany, could on the spot resolve to go to 
school to Froebel, who was able to give him in- 
struction, not merely by his talk, but by his 
shining example ; instruction not merely in the 
kindergarden doctrine, but in a thing much 
deeper, in the mastery of the fate of human 



TBE KINDERQABDEN PROPAGATED. 385 

existence, in that freedom of the spirit which is 
the end and fulfilhnent of all education. 

It was on one of these fair days, while con- 
versinoj with the Baroness and Diesterweof, that 
Froebel seemed unusually happy. He could not 
keep the good news : he announced that Luise 
Levin would arrive, having thrown up her com- 
fortable position, and would join the circle at the 
farm-house, converting it into a true home, for 
just that was her surpassing gift. But who is 
this wonderful Luise? Froebel could not hold 
back the deeper secret, so he says: " She is my 
betrothed." Indeed ! It must have caused some 
surprise, that announcement, to the two friends, 
when they found that the Love-god was weaving 
his little thread, in fact, the chief thread of all, 
into this Idea of Froebel. The Baroness claims 
that she was deUghted by the news, and 
that she and Diesterweg approved of the 
match, which she defends with some arguments 
which seem of the head more than of the 
heart. 

Diesterweo^ remained firm and faithful to the 
cause of Froebel, though he could not give his 
life to it without reserve. "Too old and too 
much to do," was his reply to the Baroness 
when she urged him to offer himself a living 
sacrifice to the holy work, as she had resolved 
to do. . But he promised to write and to speak 
in its favor whenever opportunity would present 

25 



386 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

itself, and most loyally he fulfilled his promise. 
Still the strongest and most affecting testimony 
to his faith he gave the following year. Among 
the band of young ladies who then assembled at 
Marienthal for Froebel's instruction, appeared 
the daughter of Adolph Diesterweg, sent by her 
father from her home to become one of Froebel's 
kindergardners . 

A great summer this has been for Froebel, 
and likewise for the Baroness, who came to Lie- 
benstein a woman of sorrow, disappointed in life, 
dissatisfied with the court and its false shows, 
possessing a talent unfulfilled, imprisoned like 
Ariel, yet beating its wings mightily against its 
prison walls. She has found the man, the grand 
liberator of the woman, who has let out her in- 
carcerated spirit, and given her a vocation in 
which she can realize herself to the full and 
attain an inner peace, though coupled with great 
outer activity, by becoming the woman apostle 
of the New Education. (51) 

Many hearts she has turned from Bath Lieben- 
stein, the gay, the worldly, the ephemeral, to 
Froebel's Liebenstein, the humble, the ridiculed, 
the crucified, yet the eternal. But she does not 
stop with this form of propaganda, she seizes the 
pen, she writes articles in the newspapers, which 
Froebel commends ; she interprets him, and he 
recognizes that she often expresses his thought 
better than he can. In the presence of visitors 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PROPAGATED. 387 

he will at times turn to her and say : *' Tell it to 
them, they understand you better." 

Meanwhile she becomes more and more indoc- 
trinated, yea, transfigured, into Froebel's Idea, 
particularly in its philosophical aspect. Summer 
after sunnner she comes to him for study and 
conversation, till she is saturated and transformed 
with it, an incarnation of his brain, and in many 
respects a clarification of it, for the stream of his 
thinking often ran turbid. 

Two women Froebel has now won, who take 
their places in the innermost circle of his disciples. 
One is the simple village maiden of humble birth, 
of poor education, but with her heart she has so 
deeply absorbed the master that she has become 
his other self in a way that means indissoluble 
union. The second woman is the hifi^h-born aris- 
tocrat, of courtly manners and of profound learn- 
ing; she, through her intellect, mainly, yet not 
without strong feeling, has become so permeated 
with Froebel's thouo^ht that she will rise to beinof 
it? most loyal as well as profoundest disciple, his 
self -chosen missionary to foreign lands. Such 
are the women, coming from quite opposite social 
directions, with quite opposite gifts of culture 
and nature, who have taken up Froebel and given 
him an intimate share in their very personality. 
Yet both reveal the eternal- woman (ewig- 
weibliche), who has been called forth into 
livins: energy by that man, the apostle of 



888 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

womanhood and of her first and deepest rela- 
tion, namely, to childhood. 

But there is a third person in this innermost 
circle of Froebel's apostles, a man, Wilhelm 
Middendorf , often named before, which person 
completes the trinity of consecration. This man 
was a student of theology, but his evangel was the 
Gospel according to Froebel, to which he gave 
his whole life. An eloquent man, very fascinating 
in speech and manner ; but he had ultimately one 
article of faith, one text, from which he preached, 
namely: Froebel and him crucified. He was 
more deeply ingrown with the prophet than 
either of the women disciples ; he was the bosom 
companion of Froebel forty years, in war and in 
peace, developing with him, imaging him in all 
his stages of growth. He does not show the 
separation or the twofoldness of Froebel which 
we see in the two women; he was the whole 
Froebel, both heart and head ; still he had the 
power, through his gift of speech, of translating 
Froebel into Middendorf, lending his own trans- 
parent soul as an outer garb for the dark, oracu- 
lar spirit of the prophet. 

These were the three beloved disciples, the 
persons in the nearest relation to the master, 
those who received most directly and intimately 
his spirit. From these it will pass to others and 
be perpetuated, the two women long surviving 
Froebel, but never faltering or even stopping in 



THE KINDEBQABDEN PBOPAGATED. 389 

their work of disseminating the faith. Such is 
the primal, most immediate circle of the Froe- 
belian Apostolate, coming directly from the cen- 
tral soul, and then propagating itself in ever- 
increasing concentric waves around the Earth and 
down Time. 

IV. 

Froebel at Hamburg. 

Very delightful has been the summer of 1849 
at Liebenstein, and very fruitful. It seems as 
if the period of happiness and of success has at 
last dawned on the storm-beaten man of adver- 
sity. Froebel has made his greatest conquests 
on the Rock of Love, which has showered upon 
him all the good gifts promised by its name. 
Around his thought-life the Baroness has thrown 
an atmosphere of deep appreciation and devotion, 
around his home-life Luise Levin has poured 
out the very vspirit of Love. Then a band of 
faithful pupils has mirrored his apostolic zeal in 
their own. Verily Liebenstein this year has 
been to him the Rock of Love. 

But the time has passed, the people are scatter- 
ing, the leaves are falling, the winter is coming. 
Froebel also is getting ready to depart, for he has 
received a call to Hamburg, where he is to stay 
six months, devoting himself to the work of the 
kindergarden. He is promised a handsome 
stipend for his services, one hundred thalers a 



390 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

month with expenses paid. An unusual emolu- 
ment for him ; he had to take it, though he was 
tired of his wandering life. Aged 67, he again 
starts out with an alluring hope to beckon him 
forward ; for who knows but that a great city 
like Hamburg may be his true destination after 
all? So he leaves his farm-house with its idyllic 
peace and love, for a new career in a new world. 

The outlook was indeed enticing. There were 
a number of ardent supporters of the Idea in 
Hamburg, and at least three kindergardens. A 
very active woman, Doris Liitkens by name, head 
of a flourishing school, a skillful writer, and a 
defender of Froebel in the newspapers, was his 
chief reliance. Then Alwine Middendorf was 
there, the charming Alwine, a superb kinder- 
gar dner, yet a more superb proselytizer, to 
whom mortal lips seemed powerless to say 
no. She had already chosen her life's own 
knight, being betrothed to Dr. Wichard Lange, 
a voung man of great attainments and promise, 
a writer of power, and a favorite pupil of Dies- 
terweo:. Lano^e would certainly be wheeled into 
line with his pen, and, possibly, as he was a 
teacher, with his vocation, by the beautiful kin- 
dergarden in general, and specially by the beau- 
tiful kindergardner, Alwine. 

Such, at least, was Froebel' s hope, as he set 
out for the city of the North. He was a man 
who could nourish great expectations on small 



TEE KINDERGARDEN PROPAGATED. 391 

capital, and who was liable, therefore, to disap- 
pointments equally great. 

A Woman's Club, powerful and aggressive, 
was the center of an aspiring movement of the 
Hamburg women at this time. Emancipation 
was its watchword — emancipation of the 
female sex, after long suppression and servi- 
tude. The term was indeed vague, and had a 
number of different meanings in the Club ; but 
it was very stirring, and roused the hearts of the 
women like a trumpet call ; what they lacked in 
clearness of head, they made up in intensity of 
emotion. 

Two delegates from this Club appeared at 
Liebenstein one day, in order to get acquainted 
with Froebel, whom they had heard of as the 
great coming apostle of woman. By chance 
they first saw Middendorf , who happened to be 
present on a visit from Keilhau! At once they 
concluded that he must be the prophet, he the 
stout-bodied, full-faced, broad-chested, and not 
that other lank, long-haired man sitting not far 
off. Curiously enough, these women of the 
North selected their own countryman by a 
natural affinity, for Middendorf was a North- 
German (Platt-Deutscher), from Dortmund, 
while Froebel was rather a South-German, from 
Thuringia. But the loyal Middendorf pointed 
them to the real prophet there present, who, 
however, did not please the ladies as well as their 



392 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

own landsman, with his beautiful blue eyes and 
great shock of hair, with his winning manners 
and his sweetly-tuned speech. At once they de- 
clared : " But you must come to Hamburg, too." 
This was agreed upon, as it was generally the 
policy that Middendorf should speak in advance, 
like John the Baptist, and prepare the way for the 
greater one coming after. Then the father had a 
natural longing to see daughter Alwine, who was 
making such a stir in the great city of Hamburg, 
and also to take a look at young Wichard Lange, 
his future son-in-law. 

So it came to pass that both Froebel and Mid- 
dendorf set out for Hamburg. The two friends 
were men superbly equipped with the virtue of 
Hope ; both were still good dreamers in spite of 
many a disallusion, and their journey lay under 
a sky which was one succession of rainbows. 
Perhaps after alt Hamburg is the true place for 
the home of the Idea, and the institution may 
have to move from its secluded country nook to 
the busy life of a great city. 

For the present let the two old boys pass on 
their way under the high-sounding arches of 
great expectations, but let us turn and look at 
the other thread which the Destinies are secretly 
weaving into this Hamburg scheme. Those same 
two women delegates who had appeared at Fred- 
erick Froebel' s Liebenstein, were on their jour- 
ney homeward from Switzerland, whither they 



THE KINDERGABDEN PROPAGATED. 393 

had gone to see Carl Froebel, at that time princi- 
pal of an educational institute at Ziirich, who had 
also published to the world his Idea, that of a 
great Female High-School or University (^Hoch- 
schi(Ie), which was to be the grand, illuminating 
center for woman's emancipation throughout 
Germany and the whole world. Certainly Ham- 
burg was just the place for such an institution, 
and the Woman's Club just the right patron for 
its protection and promotion. Accordingly, Carl 
Froebel was engaged and appeared at Hamburg 
at the same time with uncle Frederick, having 
brought along his wife, a very capable and active 
woman, tremendously enthusiastic for the eman- 
cipation of her sex, and, of course, for her hus- 
band's new Female University. 

Now, the reader must remember this Carl 
Froebel as one of the Froebel boys of the old 
Keilhau period, sons of Christoph Froebel, for 
whose education uncle Frederick Froebel had first 
established his school, more than thirty years 
before. The reader must also remember the 
withdrawal of those boys from Keilhau, twenty- 
four years since. Again in a strange city 
nephew and uncle are thrown together in a very 
similar, if not quite the same cause; at least 
both have a common purpose in the education 
of the woman and of the child. 

Still there is a decided difference between the 
doctrines and the purposes of the two Froebels. 



3i)4 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

Carl, besides his Female University, is a full- 
fledged radical, and is propagating a socialistic 
scheme, which brings him into politics and throws 
him into opposition to the established order — an 
attitude which his uncle always avoided, even 
though he was not very favorably impressed 
with the existing institutions. Then again Carl 
Froebel's emancipation of women meant quite a 
different thing from that of Frederick Froebel, 
who chiefly intended to educate the woman to 
be the educatress of the child, as mother or 
as kindergardner. 

Assuredly a splendid opportunity for the 
Goddess of Confusion has presented itself in 
Hamburo^ — confusion between names, thins^s, 
and persons. And she will not be slow to seize 
her chance, causing a great uproar and display 
of Hate, of which no outsider and very few in- 
siders can tell the source. And to make this 
confusion more confounding, Carl Froebel has, 
so to speak, appropriated his uncle's special work 
and latest invention, the kindergarden, incorpo- 
rating the same into his scheme of education and 
socialism. It should also be added, that both 
these men were engaged and supported, for the 
most part, by the same set of people. Such are 
the chief elements which the above-mentioned 
Goddess (Confusionaria let her be called) will 
proceed to mix together in a diabolic compound 
of misunderstandings, vilifications, plottings and 



THE KINDERGABDEN PROPAGATED. 395 

counterplottings, that all Hamburg will be trans- 
formed into a veritable Inferno, and uncle Fred- 
erick's visit, though heralded by a glorious 
sunrise, will come to resemble a dolorous jour- 
ney through the dark Netherworld, not unlike 
that seen by Dante. (52) 

The reader will ask, Why did not nephew and 
uncle join hands in the work which both had in 
common or nearly so? Uncle, too, having edu- 
cated this nephew, might have sufficient influence 
to restrain him in his extravagant theories and 
actions. Not at all; utterly impossible is any- 
thinoj but Hate, for the old curse has now beo:un 
to work far down in the depths of their souls, 
though they be kindred in blood. There enters 
that fatal heritage which has run its underlying 
line of dark descent through the whole mortal 
life before us ; again there rises to the surface 
from its hidden haunts in the human heart that 
unquenchable revenge, which the sons of Chris- 
toph Froebel felt toward their uncle Frederick 
Froebel, for what they deemed his wrong to 
their mother. And the uncle on his part has his 
counter accusation against these sons, charging 
them with base ing^ratitude toward himself as 
well as treachery to the Idea, inasmuch he had 
given up his early life chiefly to their education. 

Thus the Furies of the Family Froebel are 
turned loose suddenly in the distant city of 
Hamburg, where chance has thrown uncle and 



396 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

nephew together in a common work and with a 
common purpose. Chance is it or the unseen 
Ministers overwatching the human deed and 
seeking the right opportunity to bring it back to 
the doer through the most devious, unexpected 
channels? It is now a quarter of a century 
lacking one year since Julius and Carl Froebel 
left their uncle at Keilhau, burning with a sense 
of his injustice, uttering in their hearts an impre- 
cation which time has not softened but intensi- 
fied. A long period, but Nemesis has a long 
memory, and reckons up compound interest on 
all her debts. 

So there will be no co-operation between the 
two Froebels, and no compromise, but quite the 
opposite; they will seek to undermine and to 
destroy each other's work and influence. Two 
parties will spring up from this fatal drop of 
dragon's blood ; they will name themselves, after 
the age of the leaders, tlie Old Froebelians and 
the New Froebelians, keeping up a copious hail- 
storm of mutual disparagement, in which the lie 
was one of the chief pt^ojectiles on both sides. 
This whole Hamburg period will be one pro- 
lono^ed maneuverino^ and struoorle between the 
two parties. People will divide and grow hot in 
quarrel, of whose hidden source they have not 
the least knowledge, fighting like the Homeric 
hero in a cloud, which, however, seems to make 
them only more infuriated. Into such a mad 



TEE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 397 

discordant fermentation the jolly Hamburgers 
are set by a few vitriol gouts of that old Froebel 
blood- feud. 

The two protagonists, however, uncle and 
nephew, have enlisted for the war. Apparently 
no word of conciliation drops from cither's lips; 
their secret demons are interlocked in an inexor- 
able grip which cannot be broken till one or the 
other be hurled from the field. Which one of 
them will it be? 

Meanwhile let us go back to the side of Fred- 
erick Froebel and see what he is doing with his 
time. First, Middendorf gives his preparatory 
lectures, according to the program ; very success- 
ful they are, quite too successful, since Froebel 
who is to follow cannot help producing disap- 
pointment by comparison. Not elegant in man- 
ner or eloquent in speech ; not stylishly clad or 
comely in person ; using strange words quite un- 
intellio^ible to most of his hearers — he is not for 
a moment to be compared with silver-tongued 
Middendorf in expounding his own doctrine. 
Then he has the unfortunate habit of blinking 
with his eyes during his address, sometimes 
closinof them altoo^ether, as if he were merelv 
talking to himself, quite oblivious of his audience. 
A disenchanting habit, almost disrespectful; it is 
true that Middendorf has the same habit or one 
very similar, but in him, the favorite, it is not so 
bad; it is actually interesting. So criticism 



898 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

takes its usual tilt at poor Froebel, the sole 
creative genius in this whole business. 

Still he goes ahead with his lectures, impart- 
ing instruction to every willing listener, training 
pupils in tlie kindergarden principle and practice. 
With all its ups and downs, it is a prolific time 
for him ; he seems to have unfolded quite a 
scheme of philosophy, and formulated it as the 
underlying foundation for his educational struc- 
ture. And yet could he help feeling the disson- 
ance within? Preaching the reconciliation of 
opposites as the fundamental law of the kinder- 
garden, of life, of all creation, he must have 
experienced a chilly blast from that unreconciled 
opposition in his own heart, the cleft between 
uncle and nephew. *' All-sided unification of 
life " — such IS the watchword; yes, but what a 
scission in thine own bosom with thine own 
blood ! Conceal it as he might, such a discord- 
ant thrill must have darted through him often in 
the very glow of his exhortation to unity. But 
no self -exaltation on thy part and on mine, good 
reader ; rather let each of us ask himself : Hast 
thou never felt in thine own intimate experience 
with thyself the same accursed shiver of dis- 
sonance between thy spoken word and thy 
unspoken heart? Then confess to thyself in 
silence thy remorseful throes and perchance thy 
penitential tear. Not merely thy pity for the 
soul-rent Froebel is thy due, but a living fellow- 



TEE KINDEEGABDEN PHOPAGATED. 399 

S3^mpathy from just another such like-limited 
mortal treading the wine-press of life. 

In the meantime it must be noted that Dr. 
Wichard Lange is showing great activity and 
devotion to the Froebelian cause, as has already 
been prophesied. He becomes editor of the 
Wochenschrift , or Weekly Gazette for the ad- 
vancement of Froebel's efforts. This was started 
in January, 1850, and it contains important 
papers by Froebel himself, chiefly the product of 
his lectures at Hamburg and Liebenstein in their 
latest form. Thus journalism is made to take 
part in the Hamburg contest. 

But Carl Froebel is not behind hand on his 
side. He also employs the printed page for 
attack, defense, propagation. He writes a 
pamphlet under the title, Higli Schools for Young 
Ladies and Kinder gardens, which is destined to 
be the very thread of Fate itself woven into the 
earthly career of Frederick Froebel. Note that 
title employed by him, how he takes up and in- 
tertwines with his own scheme the special work 
and property of his uncle, so that the two men 
with their purposes become hopelessly bound 
together and confused in the mind of the public. 
Who can now tell which is which? But that 
fateful pamphlet — its full history is still to be 
told. 

Yet the other fact was painfully manifest: 
these two men, uncle and nephew, bearing the 



400 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

one 11 Mine, and advocating the one cause appar- 
ently, were. the bitterest foes. People in general 
who souo'ht to interest themselves in the new 
doctrine, stood dazed at this enmity, for which 
no reason appeared on the surface, and of which 
the real reason was concealed naturallj^ by both 
parties. Uncle and nephew had good grounds 
for shunning every allusion to that old wrong, 
real or supposed, which was the dark underlying 
fountain-head of their animosity. Still both knew 
the fact, knew it well, and furthermore both 
must have known it to be the mainspring of 
their present bitter warfare. 

Thus the demonic Powers lurking deep in the 
heart of uncle and nephew fought their battle for 
months, and dragged into their nefarious"^ strug- 
gle all their innocent friends in Hamburg quite 
unaware of what was the matter. Advantage and 
repulse, now on this side, now on that, with 
much shifting about and fluctuation ; on the 
whole Carl Froebel seems to be gaining. Cer- 
tainly things did not mend on the side of the old 
man, who, worn out with the conflict outside and 
inside, at last exclaimed : Let me get out of this 
Hamburg Hell, let me flee back to my Eock of 
Love, my Liebenstein, away from this pit of 
Hate, to which I came in an evil hour. 

And now we may see Frederick Froebel in full 
flight from the city of the North, which he had en- 
teredafew months ago almost borne aloft by gold- 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PROPAGATED. 401 

cn-winged dreams of future triumph. Exhausted, 
broken in spirit, profoundly disillusioned, he flees 
out of his diabolic environment which has called 
forth not only a fierce outer conflict, but a fiercer 
inner one, for he must have felt a sharp twinge 
every time he uttered that pivotal wording of his 
soul's deepest striving. Life's iinijication. Such 
a rending by the demons without and within he 
can no longer endure; off he speeds, with the 
resolution that if he can get back this time, he 
vrill never again quit his Liebenstein. Thus we 
may bring his soul before ourselves, seeking to 
catch an inner glimpse of it during this flight. 

But what about Carl Froebel? He holds the 
field of battle, and can well claim the victory. 
Evidently he is not too good a man not to chuckle 
over his departed antagonist, though his own 
uncle, with a triumphant look of satiated revenge. 
He erects his trophj^ ; the Female University is 
started and thrives for a short time ; but it begins 
to wane, and after two years it sinks to rise no 
more. The counter-stroke of destiny comes to 
him also, and then it is the nephew's turn to flee 
from the Hamburg field, as the uncle once fled. 

Such is the fateful story of the meeting of the 
two Froebels in the distant city, their conflict of 
hot revenge, their separation. Still Carl Froebel 
has left behind him his printed word in that 
pamphlet, whose chief eifect is yet to come, with 
a blow descending upon the head of the uncle 

2G 



402 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

like that of the Destroyer. And we must add 
that Time, the grand Adjudicator of colliding 
Ideas, has strikino^lv iustiiied the thoug^ht of Carl 
Froebel in the matter of the Female University 
and the his/her education of women. 

This Hamburg conflict must also be noted as 
the opening of the long series of great kinder- 
garden quarrels. They have the authority of 
Froebel' s own example, he began them. Already 
we have seen quite a little tussle of his at Darm- 
stadt with Dr. Folsing. As the elder Disraeli 
wrote a book on the quarrels of authors, so a big 
volume might be written on the quarrels of kin- 
dergardners, tracing their course from Froebel 
down through quite all the great apostles, partic- 
ularly the women, so many of whom seem by 
their conduct to illustrate the law of opposites 
without the reconciliation. 

Happily such a discordant theme belongs not 
in this book, and so let it be dropped just here. 
Far more pleasant is the task now before us : to 
follow Froebel' s return from his infernal journey 
back to his paradise. 

V. 

Marienthal. 

In the spring of 1850 Froebel was again loca- 
ted in Liebenstein at the farm-house, and was 
making preparations to begin his work with fresh 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 403 

zeal. The Hamburg nightmare with its awful 
discipline was over ; more than ever he could 
now appreciate his home on* the Rock of Love 
with its peace. Luise Levin is on hand, the 
center of this home-life, the very incarnation of 
the woman as home-maker. No wonder Froebel 
loved her more than ever after the ILimburo- ex- 
perience ; such a happv-making atmosphere he 
had not breathed while out of her presence; no 
such woman — she is quite perfect in his eyes 
now — had he seen in his travels. So» our Ger- 
man Dante, having escaped from Inferno, finds 
aoain his Beatrice who is to lead him into Para- 
diso. 

But look around, what does all this bustle 
mean? Things are taken from their places 
and packed up ; household articles are brought 
together, the mirror is lifted down carefully from 
the wall and put between two bed-ticks. What! 
movino^ ao'ain ! Yes, Froebel is about to leave 
the farm-house with its adjacent pens and stables 
and smells, and settle in Marienthal, a hunting- 
castle belonging to the Duke, which is near by, 
and is very suitable for the purpose of a school. 
Quite respectable our quarters will now be, yes, 
elegant in a moderate way ; the high-toned guests 
of Bath Liebenstein can henceforth visit the man 
Froebel and see his work without such a fearful 
outlay of condescension, and so much actual 
discomfort. 



404 THE LIFE OP FBOEBEL. 

But how was all this brouo^ht about? Throus^h 
the Baroness, now the most devoted adherent 
of Froebel, and alw'ays looking out for his per- 
sonal welfare and the good of the cause. During 
the preceding summer (1849) they were taking 
a walk in the neighborhood of Liebenstein, and 
passed near the Duke's pleasantly situated hunt- 
ing castle, called Marienthal. Froebel stopped 
and said: " That would be a fine place for our 
institute. Then the name would suit so well — 
Marienthal, the valley of the Marys, whom we 
intend to educate as the mothers of mankind, 
as the first Mary educated the Savior of the 
world." Thus his work has a relisfious cast in his 
own mind, and he connects it with sacred story. 
These new Marys are the kindergardners, not 
one, but many, yes all women : these are now to 
do for all what the one Mary did for one long 
ao^o — train a divine ideal. 

In such fashion Froebel's symbolic fancy was 
in the habit of playing with names, putting into 
this kind of play also a profound meaning, as 
well as into that of children. But the Baroness 
has gotten her cue in the matter — Froebel 
would like to have that unoccupied hunting-castle 
Marienthal. In her courtly way she moves the 
Duchess, and the Duchess moves the Duke, and 
the Duke speaks to the officials, who throw obsta- 
cles in the way. Such was the first wave spend- 
ing itself upon the shore of indifference ; but the 



THE KINDERGABDEN PROPAGATED. 405 

persistent Baroness starts another and still 
another, always tactful yet never ceasing; in the 
most delightful way she bores nearly to death 
every official who has anything to do with that 
huntino^-castle. Of course she is o-oins: to o-et 
it — what mortal can hold out against such cease- 
less trituration? — though the impatient Froebel 
quite despairs on account of the delay. 

In this connection she tells a good story. 
Through her influence Froebel had been invited 
to dine with the Duchess and to explain his 
doctrines to the company. Of course he could 
not appear at court in that long old-German coat 
of his, so he takes out his holiday dress, his good 
clothes, which he had not used for some time, 
from a drawer in the closet, which, like the whole 
farm-house, was permeated with the smell of the 
stable. To this smell, however, Froebel had 
o:rown so accustomed, that his nasal watch-doo^ 
never barked the least notice. So, forth he goes, 
is ushered into the ducal parlor, and takes his 
seat. Not long afterwards the majestic Duchess 
with her daughters, gay frolicsome Princesses, 
sweep into the drawing-room in state, the 
Baroness folio wins". At once the Duchess ob- 
served the change in the atmosphere of her 
apartments, and, seeing a window open not far 
off, concluded that this new odor must come 
from the outside. She commanded the windows 
to ])e closed, but tliat onlv made matters worse. 



406 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

The Baroness, from her own experience at the 
farm-house, recognized the familiar smell, and 
at once divined its source. She whispered to 
the Duchess, and was overheard by the daugh- 
ters ; at once there was an outbreak of hilarity 
from the group, especially from the merry young 
Princesses. Froebel, who must have been aston- 
ished at the mirth of this reception, was tact- 
fully informed by the Baroness of its cause ; 
whereat he joined in the laugh with a happy 
turn : ' ' Your Hio^hness sees that I have brouo^ht 
alonof with me a new are^ument in favor of mov- 
ing to Marienthal." 

After some months the Baroness had the 
pleasure of presenting to Froebel the official 
document which granted him permission to oc- 
cupy the much desired premises. So we may 
henceforth consider the aged prophet to be 
located in a happy home and in beautiful sur- 
roundings at Marienthal. 

When the Baroness arrived at Bath Lieben- 
stein in June, 1850, she found Froebel settled 
and at work in Marienthal. She had returned 
for another course of instruction and of con- 
versation; indeed, she could not stay awa3^ 
She had heard the call to a new duty and new 
life during the previous summer, no doubt of it; 
she must again see and hear the prophet in his 
own home. Then her services are needed sorely ; 
better than ever she can expound his doctrines. 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 407 

better than ever she can turn the stream of high 
personages from Bath Liebenstein to Froebel's 
new and agreeable quarters, which he has 
obtained through her intercession. But if she 
needed Froebel, Froebel needed her also — her 
profound sympathy and appreciation. He never 
had such a listener, at least not for his 
thought — one who could so dexterously wind 
after him through all the labyrinthine tortuosi- 
ties of his subtlest thinking^. 

They had been separated some eight or nine 
months, during which both had been active and 
had gathered rich experience. She had started 
her propaganda, she speaks of lecturing at 
Merseburg on the kindergarden in February, 
1850. Indeed, wherever she was, she was using 
her influence for the Idea. She had taken her 
vow to the cause, and she had found her voca- 
tion. She was now going to do what her deep- 
est nature had always demanded, but which had 
hitherto been suppressed by the conventions of 
her station in life. To vindicate her original 
selfhood is now her purpose, and to become the 
apostle of just that vindicated right. She will 
not only assert her rig^ht of unfoldino^ her inborn 
talent, but will make herself the champion of 
that right, even in the little child. 

In a conversation with Froebel she speaks 
thus, which we take to be her own confession: 
" The originality of human nature must be res- 



i08 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

cued ; the innermost, peculiar Self of each indi- 
vidual must be able to come forth in freedom, in 
order that the more gifted, the strongest souls 
may not let themselves be stamped with the im- 
press of mediocrity, or be compelled to consume 
their lives in pain because they are not able to 
find satisfaction in conventional existence among 
people of mere form. Whoever knows this pain 
of not beino^ allowed to show one's best and truest 
Self without beino^ misunderstood and branded 
as a heretic, that person will be your ally," and 
that person is the Baroness, who has here given 
quite a little peep into her life, and her conflicts 
with her high-born environment. 

What has trained her to this sacrifice for a 
great cause, in which she meets with the opposi- 
tion of her family, the hostility of her aristo- 
cratic class, the ridicule of all? We again may 
hear in a passage the note of confession: " Only 
those who have passed through deep suffering, 
who have learned, under the weight of the hard- 
est trials of life, to renounce the personal ele- 
ment — only those will be found willing to un- 
dertake the task of laboring for the improvement 
of future ages. These are only the few," and the 
Baroness is one of them, having been suppressed 
in the very germ of her individuality by the con- 
ventions surrounding her birth, and also having 
had to undergo the sorest afiiictions in her own 
domestic life. 



THE KINDERGARDEN PROPAGATED. 409 

Thus she has suffered, doubly suffered, the 
hardest blows from the hand of Fate, the outer 
compeller of life. But it is manifest that she 
has made the grand turn and is henceforth goino" 
to compel Fate itself, that it no longer have the 
controlling power over her career. She has now 
asserted her freedom, and her liberator is Froe- 
bel. Through the discipline of suffering, which 
is all that Fate can impose upon the human soul , 
she has risen to the point of self-renunciation, 
and thus is a free being, a Fate-compeller. 
Every man and woman have or ouglijt to have 
their Declaration of Independence, whose very 
day, or perchance hour, they can often tell. Not 
only is there a national but an individual Fourth 
of Juh% to be celebrated by every human being; 
it may Avell be observed more sacredly than any 
physical birth-day, being the spiritual birth-day 
of manhood, of the liberated Self. So the Baro- 
ness had her Independence Day ; that was the 
day, yes, the very hour when she met a gray- 
haired man (" the old fool ") skipping and play- 
ing through woods and fields with the bare-footed, 
ragged peasant children of Liebenstein — and 
she resolved to follow him. Still after the 
Declaration of Independence comes the long, 
hard, weary struggle to make it real, sometimes 
a seven years' war before the final triumph. 
These intervening months the Baroness has de- 
voted to fighting the battle of her Independence 



410 THE LIFE Of" FBOEBEL. 

with all the outer powers arrayed against her 
freedom, which have been hitherto her enslaving 
Fate. But now having overcome, thrown away, 
renounced forever "the personal element," 
throuoh which Fate clutches the human soul and 
enthralls it, she is the Fate-compeller. 

And thus having become the liberator of her- 
self, she takes the next higher step, which in- 
deed must be taken in order to confirm and 
secure that previous step : she becomes the liber- 
ator of others, specially of the woman and child. 
Her means is, of course, the means through 
which she has been saved, the doctrine and work 
of Froebel, in which she sees the vindication of 
the right of the Self to its free development, and 
of this right she feels every pulsation of her 
heart driving her to become the apostle. 

She has returned to Marienthal a consecrated 
woman, seeking again the presence of her 
prophet, who cannot help testing a little tlie 
depth of her devotion. We may distinctly hear 
the holy vow in the following conversation be- 
tween the initiate and the master : 

Froebel : ' ' Will you continue your service to 
the work which is to renew and rejuvenate 
human existence through the right training of 
childhood?" 

The Baroness: '* Yes, assuredly ; to the ex- 
tent of my power, that is what I shall do." 

Froebel: "Whoever labors with uie, takes 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED, 411 

up a great burden, must endure censure and 
scorn, must let himself be torn in pieces and 
burnt at the stake — can you hold out under all 
that?" 

The Baroxess: " I hope to be able." 

Such is the resolution which she has brought 
back with her to Liebenstein, showing many a 
gleam into the War of Independence which she 
has waoed during these months of her absence. 
(53) 

During these same months Froebel had also had 
his war at Hamburg, which has been already 
recorded, of which the success has been some- 
what doubtful. One of the first matters he 
speaks of to the Baroness after her arrival is that 
terrible experience, which still rouses him to 
great excitement, though weeks have elapsed. 
Particularly the Female University of Carl Froe- 
bel stirs him to a fit of fury. He evidently 
reofarded that Idea of woman's activitv as a 
danoferous rival to his Idea, as in the followinoj 
outburst: — 

' ' This Female University spoils everything for 
me with its word-cram which they call philoso- 
phy. And they ask me to join hands with them. 
Never, never ! I know my own way, which God 
has pointed out to me, and I shall continue in 
that, though the whole Avorld turns against me." 

This last sentence is probably a direct thrust at 
I he Baroness herself, who saw some good in the 



412 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

Female University amid its mistakes. Still, she 
sought in every way to calm the excited prophet 
and declares again and again her adherence to 
his doctrine. Thus we still feel the throes in 
Froebel's soul of that Hamburg conflict far away 
in quiet Marienthal after many days. 

In this matter, however, the pupil shows her- 
self broader-minded than the master, who has 
allowed his outlook to be clouded by his ani- 
mosity to his nephew. Nothing is now plainer 
than that the Female University was also a 
prophecy, a wonderful prophetic forecast, which 
Time has already largely fulfilled. The Baroness 
sees it, and very gently vindicates it, unwilling 
to ruffle too much the old man's feelins^s. And 
why not vindicate it? Is she not herself the 
woman-philosopher, if there ever was one? 
She was hit deeply by Froebel's passionate 
objection, which unwittingly smote that very 
talent of hers so effectively exerted later in 
his cause. Very inconsiderate in Froebel, and 
indeed suicidal was it to declare against philos- 
ophy for women, who seem destined to be the 
chief future cultivators of his and of all philos- 
ophy. 

But these little thrills of discord vanish in the 
grand general harmony of Marienthal, truly the 
Valley of the Marys. The- building, as now 
used and occupied, we may call the modern 
convent, still dedicated to the Mother of God, 



THE KINDEUGABDEN PROPAGATED. 413 

whose new nuns are the kindergardners, at pres- 
ent going through their novitiate for a great 
fresh service to mankind. Assuredly here is de- 
votion to a sacred cause, perchance the inner 
vow; hither they are flocking, those who have 
heard the call and are responding with faith in 
their hearts, and with renewed consecration, 
amono' whom stands out the Baroness, and an- 
other whom the stranger will always note for 
the sake of her father, " the daughter of Dies- 
terweg." 

So we have made the transition from Hamburg 
to Marienthal, veritably the rise out of Inferno to 
a terrestrial Paradise, with a few Purgatorial 
pangs throbbing -in between these extremes. 
Behold a perfect downpour of sunshine on blest 
Marienthal! Froebel's stormy life is intercalated 
with a year of celestial peace — the Happy 
Year, we shall name it — which we shall next in- 
voke our reader to witness as a kind of panoramic 
forecast of the Grand Jubilee in the coming 
New Jerusalem. 

VI. 

The Happy Year. 

We have now arrived at the happiest period of 
Froebel's later life, from the spring of 1850 to 
the summer of 1851, somewhat more than a year 
altogether. A time of peace quite unruffled, yet 
of continued activity ; more success he had than 



414 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

ever before during his kindergarden epoch, 
more recognition, more love. An emotional 
harmony and elevation pervaded all persons and 
everything in his environment at Marie nthal, 
which he called the all-sided iiniiication of life 
(alheitige Lehenseiniguiig). This expression, 
often used by him previously to designate his 
ideal end, he now seems to have realized, and to 
have applied to an actual place and institution. 

The Happy Year was also a year of festivals, 
small and great. Every day almost had its fes- 
tivity. The little children led by the kinder- 
gardners were to be seen in the yard before the 
house, all of them playing the games with a fes- 
tal zest. The old man was also there, springing 
and dancing mid his barefooted urchins, with 
long, gray locks leaping up and down on his neck . 
and shoulders in tune to the strain of young 
voices. Says he: "Song must accompany 
everything." Such is, the musical mood of 
Marienthal during these months ; the inner har- 
mony is continually throwing itself outwards into 
vocal attunement, and making its atmosphere 
melodiously warble Avith one prolonged carol. 
He is reported as saying : ' ' You must learn your 
mother tongue by singing it, as the old Greeks 
learned their Greek from the sonoj of Homer." 
So these little ones, and big ones, too, were to 
speak only as the nightingale speaks — in a song. 

Visitors from Bath Liebenstein flocked to the 



THE KINDEEGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 415 

new institute in greater numbers than ever. 
Some saw in him the prophet, but to the multi- 
tude he was still " the old fool." It is reported 
that the most unfruitful class of guests, the most 
indurated, hide-bound, least accessible souls, 
were the professors from the Universities. On 
the whole, the women were the most responsive 
to Froebel's work. Upon a long table in the 
large reception room, the playthings and articles 
made by the children were displayed ; the master 
himself, at stated hours, was there to explain his 
inventions, the use of his materials, and the prin- 
ciples involved. He was also ready to sell his 
book. The Education of Man, or a copy of his 
Mother Play -songs, to all who were willing to 
buy — not very many. He had no publisher, he 
had to be accent for his own wares — not a orood 
agent. 

Certain people of a supersensible daintiness 
were always repelled by the home-spun and 
the homely in Froebel, for he was never a 
handsome man, and his beauty had not im- 
proved when age had crooked his back and 
knocked out his teeth. But the little ones knew 
their friend. They would run to him in groups, 
whenever he would appear, take him by the hand, 
or cling to that long coat of his, eager to touch 
even the hem of his garment. The well-dressed 
children of the guests of Bath Liebenstein, and 
the little rustic tatterdemalions belonging to the 



416 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

peasantry would leap upon him and around him 
in a common joy, and the distinction of rank 
and wealth was sunk in love for one whom they 
instinctively felt to be their greatest benefactor. 
They never failed to find him out — the man who 
above all others gave his life just for them, and 
whose every action spake: "Come, let us live 
for our children." 

Equally great was the fascination of the child 
for Froebel, especially in this latter part of his 
life. The sight of a little one at play wrought 
upon him like a spell ; in that small shape he 
seemed to behold the imao^e of his own o^enius iii 
its most transparent earthly manifestation ; it 
was as if he saw the genius of play Avhich was 
his own, revealing itself to him in visible outward 
form. We find it stated that he would go out of 
his way across a field, in order to cast a glance 
into the eyes of a child which he saw playing in 
the distance. He ran after it as if to witness a 
divine ai)pearance flitting there before him, which 
he must look upon or miss the opportunity of a 
god-like presence. An all-consuming love of 
human infancy came over him, it was a kind of 
possession or worship, as if every child were a 
Christ-child, and he repeating the adoration of 
the Wise Men of the East, not toward the one, 
but toward all, as children of God. 

Such a paradisaical life old and young were 
leading in Marienthal during these days — a re- 



THE KINDERGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 417 

turn to the cliildliood of the race, to Eden. Yet 
the purpose of thi.s going ])a(*k was to go forward, 
to give the training for the task of the present 
in its very germ. Besides this environment of 
little faces reflecting his joy, Froebel Avas sur- 
rounded by pupils who were becoming imbued 
with his doctrine and spirit. Moreover the two 
devoted women were present, the Baroness and 
Luise Levin, each of whom in her own way was 
a living counterpart of himself, and mirrored 
back to him the hisfhest realization of his talents. 
Then the third one, the man of this inner circle 
of discipleship, would come over from Keilhau 
now and then, and add the unique rich tones of 
his musical life to the harmonies of the Marien- 
thal choir. 

But Marienthal cannot keep all its happiness 
to itself, that were indeed a kind of selfishness. 
It must impart the good it possesses in order to 
possess the same completely. Accordingly, Froe- 
bel plans a grand festival, a play-festival for all 
the children in the schools of the neighboring 
villages. He secured spacious grounds in front 
of the castle Altenstein, where the Duke resided, 
an elevated place mid delightful scenery. More 
than a year he labored at the scheme ; he visited 
teachers, roused their interest and co-operation, 
stirred up the parents. At last he brings 
tooether more than 300 children from ^yq towns, 
led by some 25 teachers and assistants. A 

27 



418 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

great day for that whole region; the humble 
peasant turns out as well as the aristocratic guest 
from Bath Liebenstein. Even the Duke and 
Duchess with their little daughter are present. 

Of this small army of little ones Froebel was 
generalissimo, directing its movements with a 
military precision which was suggested by his 
soldier-life ; Middendorf , coming over from Keil- 
hau and helping him make everything fit harmoni- 
ously, was secoud in command. Thus the two 
aged veterans had another campaign together, 
which Avas to be their last. From the War of 
Liberation (1813) they had been fellow-soldiers 
in a common cause for nearly forty years, and 
had been fio^htino: a foe even orreater than 
Napoleon. 

The five columns from the five different towns 
met at a common place, and entered the grounds 
which were in the form of a large square, inside 
of which square were eight different circles of 
children, one within the other. Thus we behold 
the plav-rinofs of the kindero^arden mas^nified and 
transferred from the school-room to the open air, 
in which fact we may see a vast new application 
of Froebel' s idea. The world is to be kinder- 
gardenized. 

Over the entrance was the motto festooned in 
flowers and oak-leaves: '* Deep meaning often 
lies in children's play." These same words, 
taken from Schiller, are the motto for Froebel' s 



TEE KINDEBGARDEN PROPAGATED. 419 

book of Mother Play-songs, wherein we may 
again see the connection between this play -festival 
and the kindergarden. Every person, therefore, 
who entered the inclosure, was reminded at the 
start that this play was not capricious or merely 
for recreation, but was educative, having a pro- 
found significance. It was to be free, happy, 
spontaneous, yet ordered, with an inner meaning, 
in its way giving a lesson. 

The evolutions began, the marching and wheel- 
ing in many a twist and turn and combination, 
whereof no description can be here given. Then 
many games were played, popular sports were in- 
dulged in, of course all with a meaning. It waa 
the kindergarden made universal, which was 
thereby seen to be the true principle of a grand 
folk-festival. Froebel' s Uttle institution had burst 
its bounds and was streaming out over the adjacent 
country Avith the ambition to take possession of 
the amusements of the people, and transfiguring 
them into the kindergarden. He says that this 
festival was intended to be a picture of the all- 
sided unification of life. Different villages, dif- 
ferent classes of society, different ages came 
together in a festival, and were unified by ordered 
play. The circle on which they gathered had 
this meaning, with its. one invisible center, and 
its visible rim made up of individuals, each of 
whom was a unit belono^ino: to a whole which both 
determined them and was determined by them. 



420 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL. 

A suggestive image it wiis of man's relation in 
the institutional order above him yet in him, 
which the child here plays before enacting it in 
life. Thus he is trained to what may be called 
Institutional Virtue, the essence of all the Virtues. 

Such was the great play-festival of Altenstein, 
a very important act of Froebel's life, one upon 
which he spent much time and thought, and one 
which suffo:ests a new evolution of the kinderg^ar- 
den, which it has hardly yet entered upon. Strong 
objections are made to such exhibitions of chil- 
dren, and they have their dangers. Such a fes- 
tival, however, cannot well cultivate spectacular 
display and love of appearance; as Froebel con- 
ceived it and carried it out, it has an ethical end, 
the very highest, that Virtue which underlies the 
whole Social Order. (54) 

The day given by nature was very beautiful, 
even more beautiful was the day given by man. 
When the declining sun announced its close, the 
entire body went back to the first meeting-place 
and separated, marching thence to village and to 
home. Out of the bosom of the family each 
child came that mornino^, unitinoj with his fellows 
for the high festival, which played just this act 
of association for the little ones, and which, when 
done, was followed by the return of each into 
the bosom of the family, in which they disap- 
peared from the public view, passing back into 
their inner world, into their birth-place. 



THE KINDERGABDEN PROPAGATED. 421 

But this fiimily, this inner world founded on 
the love of man and woman, is also an institu- 
tion and must be celebrated ; indeed, it is to have 
the next grand festival in Marienthal, to which 
the Altenstein festival may be deemed the happy 
prelude. A new and more intense celebration, 
that of the heart itself in its supreme joy, we are 
invited to witness, and of course shall not fail to 
be present. 

Again the festal leader and deepest participant 
is Froebel himself. He is now to celebrate the 
formation of the family by marriage with Luise 
Levin. The center and inner germ of all unifi- 
cation of life is to be brought forth and made 
real in a most significant deed, around which will 
play the third and most soulful festival of 
Marienthal. This step is, perhaps, the most 
characteristic in the man's whole life, and has 
been and still is judged very diversely even by 
his admirers, some of whom, having come to this 
brink, stop aghast and take a hasty look over the 
precipice, then shrink back, secretly saying to 
themselves: "Thither I cannot follow thee." 
But there are others, and not by any means the 
oldest of his followers, who will respond to the 
question, " What do you think of it? " with 
sparkling eyes and smiling lips, faltering out in 
a soft tone of voice: "Better an old man's 
darling than a young man's slave." 

Alreadv the reader must have noted in both 



422 THE LIFE OF FliOEBEL. 

parties the signs of what was surely couiiiig. 
The history of Luise Levin has been outlined in 
a previous section : how she dreamed of Froebel 
in her secluded humble life at Osterode as a kind 
of ideal man, how at last she succeeded in com- 
ing into his presence and serving him in many 
little ways at Keilhau, how she became a kinder- 
gardner filled with his play-spirit, how in fine she 
won the love of the old man and transformed his 
life, supporting him sympathetically in his work 
and smoothing for the weary wanderer a pillow 
of rest in a home. The time has come when 
these two souls, already united in love, must take 
the vow before the world and celebrate in a happy 
festival their life's unification. 

Not one of Froebel 's direct kindred could be 
called a follower of his, he had no disciple bear- 
ing; the name Froebel ; he was 2:oino^ to o^ive it to 
that person who above all others deserved it, and 
who might be able to perpetuate it for many years 
to come — which event actually happened. All 
Keilhau was estranged except Middendorf , the 
women there would not even visit Marienthal. 
Those nephews whom he educated had a still 
deeper hostility. None of his family, therefore, 
can be heirs of his work and propagators of the 
Idea. All -this he was going to transmit along 
with his name to another, to a woman whom he 
knew to be love and loyalty incarnate. 

Nor must it be thought that this was merely 



THE KINDEBGARDEN PliOPAGATED. 423 

the case of an old man who married a young 
woman that she might take care of him. Luise 
Levin was indeed an excellent housekeeper — a 
matter not altogether to be overlooked by any 
man, 3'oung or old, in taking a wife; still higher 
she stood as a supreme home-maker ; highest of 
all , she was his spiritual co-worker and helpmate 
in all his labors, especially possessing a play-soul 
adapted to the very essence of his task. And 
Froebel, according to eye-mtnesses, did not seem 
old ; marvelous vigor of body and mind he still 
had, visible in the amount of his daily work. By 
nature as well as by vocation he had the spirit of 
eternal youth, even in itsgayety; ever playing 
Avith children in childlike wavs, he remained as a 
child. In fact, how could he help staying young, 
daily quaffing of the fountain of rejuvenescence, 
the veritable El Dorado, the kindergarden? 

Froebel had imparted the coming event to his 
two friends at Bath Liebenstein, Diesterweg and 
the Baroness. Says the latter: "Both of us 
could only agree with him in his purpose. We 
rejoiced that he was to have somebody to look 
after him in old age. His robustness, which still 
supplied him with a power of restless activity, 
made the thought of a second marriage appear 
less surprising ; nobody would have taken him 
to be 68 years old at that time." Herein he 
has been compared to his countryman, the poet 
Goethe, who at a more advanced age than that of 



424 THE LIFE OF F ROE BEL. 

Froebel, was still deeply susceptible to woman's 
love. Undying youth and freshness of spirit 
belonged to both, for the one was a poet and the 
other a kindergardner, both having a creative 
power to the last, and hence self -creative. 

In July, 1851, the wedding took place, the 
supreme act of "all-sided unification of life." 
In the presence of pupils and guests, the cere- 
mony was performed by the pastor of the neigh- 
bering village of Schweina. Standing up with 
the couple was another couple, Middendorf and 
the Baroness, who had taken the part of grooms- 
man and bridesmaid. Thus the inner circle of 
Froebel' s disciples was there around him, and in 
one sense they were all married on that day — 
married to his Idea. Froebel with his three be- 
loved, most faithful followers, one of whom was 
his spouse, participated in this marriage, which 
was a kind of apostolic consecration. 

Then the festivity broke loose wildly in that 
hall, which was festooned with all sorts of flow- 
ery emblems. Poems, allegories, plays, poured 
forth; then came song and dance. Both the old 
boys, Froebel and Middendorf, danced with the 
bride, and with all the fair damsels, the kinder- 
gardners, to whom these teachers gave an unusual 
lesson. Why not? Had not the two men been 
playijig with the children for many years? Mid- 
dendorf was the favorite whom the young ladies 
adored " as a God." The testimony has been 



THE KINDERGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 425 

handed down that ' ' he stood nearer to us o-irls 
than Froebel himself." In his most radiant 
mood we have to picture Middendorf with his 
swimming blue eyes and fluffy mane of hair un- 
dulating with his body in the dance, whom all 
men admired, and all women loved at first siofht. 
but who had for himself one only idol, one sino-le 
object of love and adoration, and that was 
Froebel. 

And it must be recorded that the baby also ap- 
peared in that household, not Froebel' s, but baby 
Opitz. A happy day it was when a young widow 
of this name arrived at Marienthal with her little 
suckling barely nine months old, and applied to 
receive instruction for the sake of her infant boy, 
as well as for the purpose of gaining a liveli- 
hood most consonant with her maternal nature. 
Froebel, gazing into the eyes of the little fellow, 
said : ' ' Yes, I shall take you. Madam, on one con- 
sideration : you must bring that child with you." 
Great was his delight to have such a youngster 
in his household, now it was complete. Over the 
reception of this infant there had to be another 
festival, yet another festival. Middendorf hap- 
pened to be present just at this time — he always 
seems to appear at Froebel 's side when prayed 
for — and he poured himself out in a poetical 
effusion which echoed his friend's happiness from 
his own musical soul. Froebel took the infant 
from the arms of its mother, flung it up into the 



426 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

:iir, hugged it and kissed it, as St. Anthony did 
the Christ-child, while his pupils festooned all 
three, mother, child, and Froebel, with chains of 
roses, chanting at the same time the poem by 
Middendorf. 

Such was the festival called forth by the arri- 
val of baby Opitz in the household of Marien- 
thal: truly a symbolic affair. But at another 
time Froebel had to say to his wife: "My 
thoughts are my children, cherish them." 

Thus runs 'the joyous stream of festivals 
through this year, certainly the Happy Year of 
Froebel' s checkered life. The grand culmination 
was in this marriage, with Luise Levin as bride, 

with the Baroness as bridesmaid and Middendorf 

« 

as groomsman. One cannot help thinking that 
Madam Middendorf had some reason to be jeal- 
ous of Froebel, so completely did the latter hold 
the kevs of her husband's heart, and turn them 
too. Middendorf, the middle man and mediator 
of the world with his beloved Froebel, reconcil- 
ing present and turning away future trouble from 
his friend. He comes to the Baroness and 
whispers to her : if any discord threatens these 
festal days approaching, help me keep it o:ff. 
Evidently he feared that some harsh note from 
Keilhau might drop down upon Froebel and in- 
terrupt the joy. He was the sole representative 
from Keilhau, for he could not remain away, and 
got married himself in the marriage of Froebel. 



THE KINDEBGARDEN PROPAGATED. 427 

Through this step, however, the rent between 
uncle Frederick and the Keilhau women became 
deeper. So he was estranged from his nieces, 
the Froebel girls, daughters of his brother Chris- 
tian, by this his second marriage, as he was es- 
tranged by his first marriage from his nephews, 
sons of his brother Christoph, the Froebel boys. 
Thus it came about that the old man was destined 
to end his days in complete alienation from his 
kindred. It is pathetic to learn that his elder 
brother, Christian Froebel, who thirty years be- 
fore had given up home and fortune to the youno- 
school of Frederick, was still alive at Keilhau, 
though we hear nothing of him during these 
festal days of his brother, now an old man also. 

So the conscientious biographer has to note 
down with an unwilling hand that " the all-sided 
unification of life " has still a side not yet unified 
even during the Happy Year of Marienthal. 
Such is the finitude lurking in all human effort, 
alack-a-day! The limit appears somewhere, the 
widest horizon hath still a bound, yea, perchance 
a little storm-cloud gathering in the distance, not 
larger than your hand, and slowly bearing down 
this way. 

Still it has been a great and glorious year for 
Froebel , and the sympathetic reader of his varied 
career Avill love to dwell upon it as the sunniest 
spot of all his days, as the untroubled period 
when the hard fates of existence seemed to have 



428 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

relaxed their grip on his life- thread, softening 
perchance into reverence for his age. 

So we may let the little discord with Keilhau 
pass as a small cloud-rack floating in the sunlit 
welkin. But something dark and troublous rises 
up from the past destinies of this life of Froebel, 
a kind of foreboding which utters itself anxiously 
in the question: Will that Nemesis of the Deed, 
hitherto so remorseless in its pursuit, spare the 
aged man in the top of this last joy of his? Let 
us see. 

YII. 

The Final Blow. 

Of all the Prussian Ministers of Education, 
the one most distinguished, the one whose fame 
is destined to be carried over the entire world 
and transmitted down Time to the remotest gen- 
erations, bears the name of Von Raumer. This 
celebrity which he has obtained, and is fated still 
further to obtain, springs from one seemingly 
small act of his, the nature of which is seen in a 
ministerial decree issued by him under the date 
of August 7th, 1851, of which the following 
extract gives the purport : — 

" Whereas it appears by a pamphlet written 
by Carl Froebel, entitled, High Schools for 
Young Ladies and Kindergardens ^ that kinder- 
gardens form a part of the Froebelian socialistic 
system, which is calculated to train the youth of 



THE KINDERGARDEN PROPAGATED. 429 

the country to atlieisin, such schools and kiiidcr- 
oardens cannot be suffered to exist." 

Here rises ao^ain that Goddess of Confusion 



& 



once so active at Hamburg, but whom we imao-- 
ined to have been left behind forever when we 
fled from that city to Liebenstein, the Rock of 
Love. Is she, then, following us hither, aided 
by the dark Powers of the Air? At any rate 
she has gotten the ear of a Prussian minister, 
Avho, in strange, obedience to her promptings, has 
sent forth the above edict. 

Such was the blow which seemed to fall from 
the clear sky upon the happy innocent circle at 
Marienthal, performing its simple task in obscure 
paradisaical harmony. The most powerful, the 
most enlightened state in Germany, doubled up 
its giant fist, and certainly without adequate 
provocation, smote the old man, harmlessly 
dwelling in his Eden, giving up his aged days 
to playing with little children, and teaching 
others to play with them. 

Even in aristocratic circles the decree created 
surprise and disapproval. The Baroness has 
given a dramatic account of the way in which 
the news was received by the ducal family of 
Meininoen. After dinner, at which she was a 
guest, the Duke stepped up to her with news- 
paper in hand, and said: " The Froebelian kin- 
der o:ardens are forbidden in Prussia." The 
Baroness thought he was jesting. But he handed 



\ 



433 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

her the paper and said, " Read." Sure enough, 
there stood the decree. The high personages 
present were all taken aback ; they agreed that 
there must be some mistake somewhere; to 
prohibit children's games as dangerous to 
society seemed not quite reasonable. A mistake, 
a mistake, thought the Baroness, let us try at 
once to correct it, and so she hastened to 
Froebel, who had already heard the news. 

The confusion between the two Froebels, Carl 
and Frederick, was manifest in the words of the 
decree itself. The Hamburg conflict with its 
secret hate had passed to Berlin and had there 
begotten a monstrous offspring, which turned 
and smote both contestants, the nephew and the 
uncle. The old fatal thread of retribution spun of 
the deeds of the Froebel Family was woven into 
the interdict of the Prussian Minister, throug-h 
whom the nephew again brings home vengeance 
upon the uncle, though calling the same blow 
down upon his own head. 

Thus we must trace the interior leading-string 
which directed this crushing trip-hammer stroke, 
to the Hamburg feud, which, however, has its 
deep-seated source further back in that ancient 
Nemesis working in the blood of the Family 
Froebel. Strong, yea, bitter opposition Fred- 
erick Froebel always showed to the Female Uni- 
versity of his nephew, yet the latter helps forge 
the thunderbolt against him. Then his inno- 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PROPAGATED. 431 

cent kindergarden, through the nephew's adop- 
tion of it, is found by the government in 
such bad company that it is at once hustled out 
of the world, or the Prussian part thereof. 
Then the charge of propagating socialism, true 
of Carl, is untrue of Frederick, but it strikes 
him none the less. But the blackest, most damna- 
ble falsehood of all is the alleo^ed atheism of 
Frederick Froebel, whose deepest trait was his 
religiosity, of whom it may be said as of Spinoza, 
that he was a God-intoxicated man. 

But such is the terrible irony of Nemesis, by 
whom he is made to suffer for that which he has 
not done, apparently in order to atone for that 
which he has done. For in a little dark nook of his 
heart, lurking in night, lay the crouching Furies, 
still capable of being roused to vengeance in 
spite of deep religious convictions and a devoted, 
yea, a holy life. Such a rent garment of mortal- 
itv and finitude we must see still clinofilifif to him 
and tremble, w hile we justify the ways of Provi- 
dence, who puts even the righteous under his 
discipline, unto the one supreme end, perfection, 

A great confusion between two men of the 
same name, and a great mistake on the part of 
the Minister; Froebel thought he could show 
this confusion, which was indeed plain enough, 
and then have the mistake corrected through a 
rescinding^ of the decree. He wrote to the Min- 
ister, sending proofs, documents, his own publi- 



432 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

cations during a long life; he declared his 
adhesion to Christianity, he proclaimed his oppo- 
sition to the plans of Carl Froebel — all with no 
result. The Minister acknowledged the confu- 
sion of names, but confirmed Avith fresh emphasis 
the interdict, asserting that the systems of both 
Froebels, whatever their differences, were one in 
their hostility to Christianity. 

Thus the prayer of the old man for justice 
only brought down a second heavy blow upon his 
devoted head. Under it he began to droop, to 
show a sinkinof Avithin himself which cast a 
shadow of the commg end. Then his aged 
frame would rise to moments of exaltation and of 
wonderful rejuvenescence, as he would say: '* I 
shall go to America, the new world, where is 
new life, where the new education of the human 
race is to begin." So would speak the bold 
youth of seventy years, looking across the ocean 
to a land whither he had always turned his eyes 
for fresh hope in days of despair. Then the 
fighting mood would get uppermost, and he 
would break out in a kind of Berserker fit of old 
Teutonic war-rage : "I want struggle for my 
cause, Avithout fight the truth never celebrates a 
triumph. No silence, no skulking in the rear ! " 
Still, in spite of such flashes, there was a mani- 
fest drooping, a slow relaxing of the grip, 
physical and mental, a gradual letting go of the 
earth. 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 433 

Now for the work of the Baroness in this criti- 
cal period. With all her skill and energy she 
set about having the obnoxious decree withdrawn, 
or if not withdrawn, circumvented. Heroic 
courage and apostleship she shows, she, of noble 
birth, a court lady and knowing the way of 
courts, vet orivinor herself" unreservedlv to risfht 
the wronoj done to an humble, unoffendinof man 
whose cause she has espoused. She goes to Ber- 
lin, she pleads with people of influence, oflicial, 
aristocratic, yea, royal; she even has an interview 
with the terrible inquisitor. Yon Eaumer himself, 
at whose blind fanaticism she is horrified. When 
h\\Q is repulsed hy the mighty heresy-hunter who 
discovered atheism in little children's games, she 
resolves to reach out beyond and behind him, to 
the King of Prussia himself. There was a re- 
ception given by the Queen, at which the King was 
present ; up steps the Baroness with a document 
in her hand, which she presents to him : it is Froe- 
bel's petition for an investigation. The King re- 
ceives it with a friendly, that is, diplomatic smile, 
but the whole thing comes to naught. Still she 
works and pleads and proselytizes and button- 
holes all Berlin — a most persistent, lion-hearted 
woman, importunate, putting to flight many a 
man during these days when she but appeared. 
Malice sped its shaft against her too, though she 
defied it, charging her with being a red-hot revo- 
lutionist in her heart, and even an atheist. But 



434 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

what of it? True to her vow of discipleship 
she is going to remain, though she is getting a 
foretaste of martyrdom. 

Still of no avail is her effort; she hears the 
final word of 'the Minister, which has in it the 
sound of answer and of brute force : "I sliall 
never permit the establishment of Froebelian 
kindergardens . ' ' 

' ' But you cannot hinder families from em- 
ploying Froebel's play-materials for their young 
children? " 

'' Therein we have no power," said the Minis- 
ter. 

*' Then we shall show you the unrighteousness 
of your judgment," answered the bold Baroness 
to the official mouth-piece of the Prussian State. 
Behind the Minister, behind the King, behind 
the State, she is going to go, and reach down 
into the Family, the foundation of all institu- 
tions, and there plant the kindergarden. 

Heroic is her act of valor, especially in bureau- 
cratic Germany, with its vast horde of official- 
dom by nature truckling to the powerful and 
tyrannical to the powerless. Forth she goes and 
establishes a family kindergarden, and calls one 
of Froebel's trained kinders^ardners to take charo^e 
of it, in the very face of the Minister's prohibi- 
tion. Thus she opens her campaign, and to 
stand back of her with succor she founds a kin- 
dergarden association at Berlin. Nor did she 



THE KINDEEGAUDEN PUOPAGATED 435 

remit her efforts with the authorities for the res- 
cinding of the fateful decree. At last, in the 
year 18G0, the Minister of the "New Era" 
conies into office, and removes the prohibition, 
which act is chiefly to be ascribed to her efforts. 
But Froebel had lain in the grave eight years 
before this reparation took place. 

Thus the Baroness with heart-stirrinof courage 
has proven her discipleship. She has stood the 
test of fire and crucifixion, showing her adaman- 
tine fidelity to Froebel and his cause. She has 
written in shining letters her deed, which tells 
what she meant when she said she could endure 
censure and scorn, could be torn to pieces and 
burnt at the stake, if the call should come for 
such a sacrifice. And a strong prelude of such a 
call has come in this recent experience, a prelude 
like the sound of a trumpet. She has proven 
the mio'ht of her faith, she has fulfilled her 
vow of consecration which she once took in the 
presence of the master himself. 

Such was the famous Prussian decree against 
the Froebelian kinders^arden, a kind of medieval 
Papal ban of interdict and excommunication, 
though issued by a modern Protestant State. 
Yet, as is usual in such cases, it worked both 
ways, showing something of the nature of a boom- 
erang. Testimony began to flow in from every 
direction to the merit of the work and its author. 
Many teachers praised it, headed by Diesterweg, 



43G THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 



the o-reatest of them all. Parents bore witness 
to its excellence. Liberals - adopted it into their 
proo-ram of education; yea, the radicals, the real 
revolutionists, became its active supporters, just 
because it was suppressed by the reactionary 
government, though Froebel had little in common 
with them. Then it took wings and flew to all 
free countries, to England, to distant America, 
that it, in the fullness of time, unfold unhamp- 
ered to its complete stature. The Berlin comic 
paper, the II I adder dafsch, helped with its ironical 
fun, pointing out as objects of suspicion those 
three-year-old demagogues with their inflamma- 
tory speeches, those red-handed revolutionists in 
swaddling clothes. 

So it came to pass that the kindergarden, in 
spite of its author's quiet and retired activity, 
was whirled out of its secluded nook into the sea 
of politics ; it became a national question and a 
party shibboleth. Chiefly it divided the school- 
people of Germany and does so to this day. 
The Twentieth Century is here, and we still read 
of fierce attacks on the kindergarden in the assem- 
blages of German pedagogues followed by hot 
defense, spoken and printed. 

Very striking in this story is the contrast be- 
tween what is small but everlasting, and what is 
big but ephemeral. The great events and great 
men of great Berlin, great at that time, are now 
fast ebbing in ever-diminishing ripples toward 



I 

I 



THE KINDEBGABBEN PBOPAGATED. 437 

the shores of oblivion. But that Uttle rural 
point at ^Nlarienthal where Froebel began playino- 
chikh-en's games with barefoot peasant boys, 
has given rise to a vast ever-increasing tidal-wave 
^vhich already encompasses the earth. Somethino- 
eternal, surely, lies in the man, something God- 
hke is workincr in these seeminolv little, insio-- 
niticant acts of his, which are thus symbols of 
him, reflecting strangely his own symbolic doc- 
trine in his life. An original divine germ lurks 
in his work, which is to be fed and fostered to 
its full growth by all time and the whole world. 
Still, we must not forget the mortal, finite 
element, which is mingled with and winds through 
his earthly career — the ominous fatal thread 
which we have seen spinning itself into the very 
texture of Froebel' s terrestrial existence. In 
the happiest moment of his life the ancient 
curse is secretly at work, the Furies of the 
Family Froebel have in hand and are raisinsf 

•^ c5 

over his head the iron sledge of Fate. The 
blow of Prussia reaches back to Carl Froebel, 
from Carl Froebel to his mother, and from his 
mother to that one deed of Frederick Froebel, 
which in a subtle, tortuous, hidden path, winds 
down through many years and many persons and 
smites with its Nemesis the doer in the very 
consummation of his bliss, in the very midst of 
his honeymoon, not a month after his marriage. 
AVe have not forgotten that something quite sim- 



438 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

ilar happened just after the double wedding which 
was the flowering of Keilhau. 

But, old man ! often before hast thou been 
stricken to earth, yet thou hast always risen 
again to thy feet, and defied all the Fates and 
Furies of existence to the uttermost, doing thine 
allotted human task in spite of the Nemesis of 
even thine own act. Up again, and at them as of 
vore, though thine aged frame totters to its fall! 
Thou hast still the god-like stuff in thee to rise 
under this last and heaviest stroke ' descending 
even from thine own wrong ; thou art greater 
than any limit put upon thee by thine own deed, 
and canst surely mount above it to a new tri- 
umphal entry into the paradise of thy supreme 
freedom. Up, cry the angels in Heaven; once 
more rise to thy feet, and prepare to come to us, 
for this is thy last and sorest trial. 

VIII. 

Last Days of Froebel. 

Valiantly the gray-haired veteran stood up 
under the repeated strokes of his foes, and set 
himself to meet their charges. Assistance and 
appreciation began to come to him as never be- 
fore, so that he could be2:in to see the ultimate 
triumph of his cause. The next month after the 
decree a Teachers' Assemblj^ was held at Lie ben- 
stein (Sept. 27-9, 1851), and gave the highest 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 439 

recognition to his work. The means for its 
propagation were discussed, and a declaration in 
its favor was addressed to the pedagogical world. 
Diesterweg was in the chair, distinguished men 
bore testimony to the merit of the kindero^arden, 
the whole meeting became a kind of Froebelian 
love-feast. Froebel himself was present, and 
was the center of interest ; he gave an address 
upon his educational labors, mth his old fire and 
energy, producing a deep impression and calling 
forth universal applause. AVounded but by no 
means out of the fight, the aged war-horse had 
again sprung to his feet, and he showed his 
ancient mettle by another dash at the enemy, the 
sons of darkness. 

Full of fresh hope and desire for work Froebel 
still was, as we see by the following promises 
which he proposed at once to set about fulfilling. 
First, he would write a compendium or text-book 
f or kindergardners ; second, he would again es- 
tablish a periodical for advocating the cause. 
The latter came to light in the Zeifsclirift, edited 
by Director Marquart of Dresden; but the 
former was never written, seemingly never 
begun. 

This was a misfortune, the eifects of which 
are experienced to this day in the training of kin- 
dero^ardners. Alreadv durino^ Froebel' s life the 

~ I/O 

need had been felt of having some definite and 
complete statement of the system as a whole. 



440 THE LIFE OP FEOEBEL. 

The Teachers' Assembly had voiced this need, 
and Froebel had consented to do the work. But 
he wanted to have the help of Middendorf , who 
could not at that time be spared from Keilhau. 
And the Keilhau people probably thought that 
the result would be only another unsalable book, 
like the .Education of Man or the Mother Play- 
songs. Middendorf himself did not feel free 
to make the sacrifice just then, as he had so 
often done before at the call of his friend. He 
probably thought, too, that there was still time 
enough, as Froebel seemed so vigorous. 

The result of the delay has been that no kin- 
dergarden manual or compendium, giving a com- 
plete and connected survey of the system in its 
totality, has come down from Froebel. Slight 
sketches do, indeed, exist, but these are confes- 
sedly imperfect. Froebel' s writings on the kinder- 
ofarden are a disconnected mass of lectures, 
essays, conversations, letters, articles for news- 
papers, all of which were written piecemeal and 
in a hurry, and extend through a period of fifteen 
years, during which time he was testing, chang- 
ing, unfolding his work and his thought. Hence 
inconsistencies, contradictions, obscurities and 
repetitions abound in them, and there is no doubt 
that they need a careful, critical overhauling and 
ordering, which ought also to show the historic 
genesis of the system from its first early stage to 
the latest ripened product. The manuals which 



THE KINDEIIGABDEN PROPAGATED. 441 

we know, sprang up after Froebel, and have 
their history also. 

Still Froebel had o^iven his traininof to a ffood 
many pupils, who have handed down his ideas 
and his manipulations in an organic order. Thus 
they have kept in living activity the kindergar- 
den organism, and have nourished it to an un- 
precedented growth. To this day there is a sur- 
prising amount of tradition in the kindergarden, 
most of which seems to have come down from 
Froebel himself. Such was the greatness of the 
man : he could build an institution, which would 
keep on growing and developing long after his 
death, with the outlook of becoming truly uni- 
versal and embracing the whole earth. 

In spite of these efforts it was noticed by ob- 
serving friends that Froebel had spells of lassi- 
tude ; he could not hold out in his walks as 
formerly, he had often to stop and rest. Then 
he had frequently fits of silence, even in the 
presence of argumentation, which was a marked 
contrast to his previous indefatigable talking- 
power. Expressions dropped from him which 
indicated that he deemed his life-work done, and 
had only to look back upon it with impartial 
calmness and resio^nation. He is no lono^er im- 
patient at the slowness of the time in accepting 
his doctrine: '' Now I know it will be centuries 
before my view of the human being as child, and 
the education corresponding to it can be accepted. 



442 THE LIFE OF FRO E BEL. 

But that troubles me no more." He had sown 
his seed, the future will reap the crop. His 
striving in the Present is drooping, he is peace- 
fully looking to the Beyond. 

The winter of 1851-2 he passed in a kind of 
mild serenity, as if in waiting for the summons. 
Love surrounded the old man with its watchful 
care and all-anticipating devotion — love of wife 
and pupils and friends. He lived in the afternoon 
sheen of the setting sun, that luminary of which 
he was so fond, being a sort of sun-worshipper, 
as Middendorf implies in the statement, made 
after Froebel's death to the Baroness : " He had 
a great love of the sun, and would gaze upon its 
rising and setting in worshipful contemplation : 
the reason why I always forgot to ask him." 

But the cold weather has gone, the vernal 
breezes have again come to Marienthal, touching 
the buds and kissing the hills, whereat a new- 
born life at once leaps into existence. In the 
very heart of spring lies Froebel's birth-day, the 
21st of April; thus he began life in the full cen- 
ter of Nature's productive season, and seemingly 
partook of its character of creativity, which he 
showed in his work and carried over into education. 
Moreover, he has reached the Scriptural limit 
of life, three score and ten, with genius still 
creative. Surely there must be a celebration of 
the event at Marienthal, which is to be the last 
grand festivity in Froebel's career. Here we see 



THE KINDERGARDEN PROPAGATED. 443 

everywhere the hand of Middendorf the poet, the 
friend, the adorer. With the rising sun the 
pupils break forth into a song which wakens 
Froebel from his sleep. Getting up and dress- 
ing himself, he steps forth from his chamber 
into the Hall of Instruction, standing for a 
moment in surprise and joy at what meets his 
eye. The room is decked with flowers, plants, 
Avreaths, richly festooned with all the variegated 
paraphernalia of Flora herself in her gayest 
season. Another song by the young ladies, his 
pupils, dressed in white festal garments, with 
green garlands on their heads, salutes the ap- 
proaching hero, verily the Sun himself of this 
little world, who is really the original of it all, 
the primal source of all these vernal glories. 

Madam Froebel first draws near to him with 
her offering of flowers, then follow the pupils, 
the blessed maidens, bearing to him an orange 
tree with leaves, buds, flowers and fruits aU 
shootino^ toofether out of one livinof trunk — 
truly the outer visible image of Froebel himself, 
who still shows all the periods of life, childhood, 
youth, manhood, age. 

Then behold the presents spread upon the 
tables, tokens from far and near, with congratu- 
lations by the bagful — the postman brings in 
and throws down a bag of letters. In the after- 
noon, kindergarden children come in processions 
from the neisfhborino^ villao^es and throng the 



144 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

house, bringing their own little gifts made with 
their own little hands to the greatest benefactor 
they ever had in this world, whose principle of 
life was just to live for them. Singing songs, 
reciting poems, playing games, they wreathe him 
around in a festoon made of his own kindergar- 
den, and one of them at the close places a green 
crown upon his head. Then the old ever-young 
■player himself springs into the play-ring and 
conducts one of his own games, as if the ancient 
Sun might step down out of Heaven, and take 
part in one of his own Sun-dances leading the 
children of light. 

But the day is done, the Sun is setting, the 
children must turn homeward now, singing their 
parting song to their life-bringing luminary. 
The festival began with a song at his rising; 
such is the melodious beginning and end of this 
celebration, reflecting in a kind of solar symbol- 
ism the life of Froebel from sunrise to sunset. 

The whole is the work of Middendorf , and is 
a kind of Apotheosis of Froebel, ere the latter 
goes beyond. The songs written by Middendorf 
breathe love and reverence reaching up quite to 
the point of adoration. One of the significant 
pictures given to Froebel during the festival was 
a print of Raphael's Madonna and Christ-child 
adored by the boy St. John. We recall the 
answer of Langethal when somebody said that 
Middendorf was a St. John in character: *' Yes, 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 445 

SO he was, and Froebelwas his Christ." Under- 
neath this joyous celebration runs a deep cur- 
rent of religious feeling, like that of a happy 
Greek festival given in honor of some Hero or 
God, and overflowing with hymns and dances and 
games. It was Middendorf 's final tribute to his 
living friend, and unconsciously to himself — a 
dedicatory offering to their eternal friendship, 
which, as we shall see. Time cannot interrupt. 

Yet the spells - of weariness are becoming 
longer and more frequent with Froebel, showing 
his bodily break. Also his mental break begins 
to make itself felt. The question about his 
religion is discussed by the newspapers in a way 
very distasteful to him, so he writes a declaration 
upon the subject, which is suppressed by the ad- 
vice of the Baroness, supported by Middendorf 
and Diesterweg. But he is almost worn out by 
the writing of this document ; says the Baroness : 
** He could no longer collect his thoughts, as for- 
merly, and write them down without effort." 

Another honor awaited Froebel during these 
days, an honor which must be recorded. He was 
invited to attend the National Convention of Ger- 
man Teachers at Gotha. He declined the first 
invitation, as he thought the presence of a per- 
son who had been placed under the ban of the 
Prussian Government might cause discord. But 
the Convention imanimously passed a resolution 
inviting him the second time, probably for the 



44G THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

purpose of inlhiKiting its opinion of the Prussian 
prohibition. He came, and when he entered the 
hall, the entire body of teachers, though in the 
midst of their regular proceedings, rose in honor 
of the man. When the business in hand had 
ended, the president gave him a hearty welcome 
which was followed by three cheers. He 
thanked the members, and then spoke on the 
subject before the meeting (instruction in 
Natural Science), being heard with the greatest 
attention. 

Froebel returned from the Convention to 
Marienthal in good spirits. Still the periodic 
attacks of weakness kept coming oftener and 
lasting longer; evidently life was slowly relax- 
ing its grip, though he still maintained his 
hope and his serenity. On the 6th of June 
came the spell which sent him to bed perma- 
nently ; he was now a sick man for the first and 
the last time. Middendorf hastened to him 
from Hamburg, also Barop came from Keilhau. 
With the aid of these he arranged his affairs and 
made his will. Then he asked for his god- 
parent's letter, a religious document wdiicli he 
had carefully preserved, and which he now de- 
sired to be read to him, in accord with an old 
Thuringian custom. This letter he called his 
credentials — credentials to the court whither he 
was going. 

And in these last moments he did not forget 



THE KINDEBGAEDEN PEOPAGATED. 447 

Keilhau, the estranged — how could he? He ex- 
horted the family there to show itself the pattern 
of domestic concord, to be an example of " life's 
unification." He noticed the absence of Dr. 
Schaffner, who had married Elise, the third of 
the Froebel sisters, in 1850. The Keilhau 
women, his nieces, daughters of his brother 
Christian, were all absent, and we hear nothing 
of that brother Christian, still alive, whom the 
Baroness found at work the following year, do- 
ing cheerily his little task in the cellar at Keilhau. 

But, chiefly, the matter which lay nearest to 
his dying heart, yet still full of love, must rise 
to speech and be considered : What is now to be- 
come of the dearest one on earth, my wife, left 
alone without help or money? He commended 
her to the protection of Keilhau ; Middendorf 
and Bar op honestly promised and intended it, 
not, however, without some misgivings. Alas, 
why? 

Many of his last thoughts evidently turned to 
religion. The charg^e of atheism contained in 
the ministerial decree, worried him to the close. 
To his physician he said: "I am a Christian 
man." The latter replied: "Nobody doubts 
that." He was getting weaker, weaker; he 
could barely raise to his lips the little hand of a 
child who had brous^ht him some flowers and a 
dove. On the evening of June 21st, 1852, he 
opened his eyes for the last time ; his body 



448 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

was almost in a sitting position, conforming to a 
wish of his that he might meet death in that 
way; he took two long draughts of air, when 
breathing ceased. 

Says Middendorf : " The close of Froebel's 
life was that of the setting sun which he loved 
so much, and which he now manifested in him- 
self. And as I, at the view of the sunset have 
no thought of its vanishing, but of its return, 
so here I felt the certainty of the immortal life. 
Never before did I experience such a complete 
extinction of all the terrors of death." 

On the 24th the funeral took place. He lay 
covered with flowers and wreaths, a gentle smile 
playing round his lips; his face, as a whole, had 
the appearance of looking inward. The pro- 
cession, composed of children, kindergardners, 
teachers and friends, passed to the village of 
Schweina, not far away, where the pastor 
preached a sermon and Middendorf made an 
address. The latter has a peculiar note, as 
of one friend speaking intimately to another; 
the discourse seems hardly directed to the 
audience present. The living talks to the dead 
as if heard across the chasm, and speaks of 
**the recognition of the truth proclaimed by 
Thee," in a vein of exalted prophesy. By the 
disciple here the master yonder is addressed 
directly in the second person as " Thou who 
during life didst travel the ways of suffering for 



[ 



THE KINDEBGAEDEN PBOPAGATED. 449 

our sake ' ' — language which recalls the ancient 
apostleship on the plains of Judea. A poem, 
also by Middendorf, was sung, followed by a 
hymn, when the mortal part of Froebel was 
committed to the earth, amid many demonstra- 
tions of love and gratitude on the part of those 
present. 

Upon the mound at the grave stands now the 
monument designed by Middendorf — Sphere, 
Cylinder and Cube — a very significant conception. 
For it is taken from the second Gift, the truly 
originative Gift, since all the other Play-gifts 
are derived from this one, which thus represents 
the very center and creative principle of Froebel' s 
work. Moreover the second Gift with its three 
shapes and their unity was a growth of Froebel' s 
whole life. Middendorf s conception shows how 
deeply he lived in the very soul of Froebel and 
could think its thought when the friend and mas- 
ter himself was no longer visible. Upon the 
monument are inscribed the words which have 
become the motto of consecration for the kin- 
derojardner the world over: '* Come, let us live 
for our children." 

TX. 

Middendorf, The Baroness, Madam Froebel. 

Already we have designated an inner circle of 
disciples who stood nearest to Froebel, those in 
whom he was most completely incarnated — Mid- 
29 



450 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

dendorf, the Baroness, and Madam Froebel. 
Of these we may give a very brief account and 
bring to a close this biography. 

Many other devoted followers Froebel has had, 
but these enjoy a peculiar distinction ; they par- 
take not only of his doctrine, but of his person- 
ality, they are more than Frobelian, they are in 
a sense Froebel himself; they voice the man, 
not simply the man's ideas. Through close 
individual contact, as well as through a unique 
sympathy they received as their inheritance from 
the master a share of Froebel' s own self, so that 
they are the direct heirs of his spiritual property, 
the only property he had. They looked upon 
him with a kind of worship, his spirit went out 
into theirs and became a living presence, it sank 
down into their unconscious being and directed 
their conduct. In a sense he was their embodi- 
ment of the Divine upon this earth, and his word 
was a kind of Gospel. The Baroness speaks of 
a doctrinal letter of his which she kept by her as 
a sacred treasure, carrying it with her on her 
journeys and imparting its contents to the 
initiated with a species of holy awe. A deep 
sorrow overwhelmed her when the original was 
lost by accident, though it was preserved in 
copies. The three were Christians, yet to their 
eyes Christ liad received a new incarnation in 
Froebel. The mentioned letter was known among 
the set as Froebel' s Epistle to the Baroness, a 



THE KINDEBGABDEN PBOPAGATED. 451 

very important document in this Newest Testa- 
ment, containing Froebel's Evangel of the Little 
Child. 

Of the three, Middendorf was most com- 
pletely bound up in Froebel; that is, the whole 
Middendorf sank away into his friend, his in- 
dividuality was quite lost, or, rather, such was 
just his individuality, to be lost in his friend. 
The result was life became intertwined in life ; 
forty years they had worked together, and were 
twinned in a union Avhich is now to be tested 
by the first real separation. Middendorf threw 
himself into the work after Froebel's death; 
he assisted Madam Froebel in every possible way, 
he sought by an outer activity to fill the great 
void in the world, and in his own heart. Appar- 
ently he was happy as usual, he went on his 
walks, nor did he seem to relax in his power of 
work. 

Still Middendorf s heart was breaking, he 
could not stand the separation. We see by his 
conversations with the Baroness on what he was 
always thinking. They both had a common sor- 
row ; she by her sympathy and love opened the 
sluices of his soul. His delight (and hers, too) 
was to talk of the departed friend, to recall the 
words, the actions, all the scenes connected with 
the one whom both named master. Midden- 
dorf went back to the beofinnino^ of their com- 
mon life in the war of 1812. He did not forget 



452 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

to mention to the Baroness the woman-soldier 
in that campaign also. Then his thoughts 
would turn to the future, and the possible re- 
union and activity over the border. Also they 
made pilgrimages to Froebel's favorite places, 
and to Froebel's grave. 

So the days passed till the Baroness began to 
notice that Middendorf was no longer so robust, 
in fact, he seemed to be breaking physically. 
Like Froebel, he commenced to" show sis^ns of 
exhaustion with every small effort; he, too, had a 
presentiment of whither he was going. One day 
when he was wearied, the Baroness took his 
class and heard the lesson. He listened with 
deep appreciation, and remarked when she was 
done : ' ' You must take my place when I leave the 
world." Evidently some dim premonition of the 
coming transition was present to him at that 
moment. 

After Froebel's decease Middendorf s heart 
was beyond with his friend. He could think of 
nothino^ and talk of nothina^ but Froebel. As 
in life so now ; wherever Froebel went, he fol- 
lowed; as Lange says, " they were the insepar- 
able ones ; if Froebel but appeared, Middendorf 
was not far away." And at the great separation 
he will not stay long behind. 

Still the inner circle of disciples met again 
together the following year (1853). The Baro- 
ness came to Keilhau, whither Madam Froebel 



THE KINDERGABDEN PROPAGATED. 453 

liiid removed from Liebenstein with the trainiijo-, 
school. Middendorf was the center, but the 
work gave signs of transition. This was to be 
the hist time of their meetino- together. 

On the night of November 27th, 1853, Mid- 
dendorf passed away without apparent previous 
ilhiess, in consequence of a paralytic stroke, as 
the physician report ed. Thus he held out a 
little more than a year after Froebel's departure. 
Only conJQcture can account for his sudden 
demise ; without warning he took wings and 
sped forth in the night. 

After the decease of Middendorf the two 
women disciples remain — the one, Froebel's 
wife, representing more his instinct and heart, 
the other, the Baroness, representing more his 
intellect and his thouoht. Both will survive 
Middendorf aud Froebel many years, and each 
will devote herself to the propagation of the 
truth in her own way. 

The Baroness is the apostle to foreign lands ; 
Europe is her seed-field which she takes and 
cultivates with marvelous eneroy and success. 
Her own country at first will not listen to her, so 
she goes forth and makes the kindergarden not 
simply national but international, not German 
merely, but European. So great have been her 
services that she may be called the mother of the 
kinder o'ar den. Later she returned and devoted 



454 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

herself to Germany, but she never succeeded in 
removing the early hostility to her cause. 

When Middendorf was gone, Madam Froebel 
could no longer stay at Keilhau. It was a very 
trying ordeal for her to go back to that place from 
which she had been in a manner exiled, but she 
obeyed what seemed to be the dying wish of her 
husband, and the gentle persuasion of Midden- 
dorf. He could protect her while he lived, but 
now there was no protection, at least none which 
could render life supportable. She soon goes to 
Dresden, but her stay is made unpleasant in that 
city ; then she goes to Hamburg, which becomes 
the field of her future labors. These continued 
many years till she saw the light of the 20th 
century, when she expired (Jan. 8th, 1900). 
Thus the inner circle of Froebel' s disciples has 
reached down to the present. 

With the death of Madam Froebel the biogra- 
phy of Froebel and of his immediate circle comes 
to a close, extending from his birth in 1782 tiU 
1900. 



NOTES, 

(1) p. 2. That which is usually called Froebel's Autobi- 
ography is his Letter to the Duke of Meiuingeu, which is 
commouly assigned to the year 1827. (Translated by 
Michaelis and Moore, published by Bardeen; translated also 
by Lucy Wheelock — with omissions^ we notice — published 
in Barnard's Kinder gar den and Child Gulture.~) 

The early life of Froebel is almost wholly drawn from three 
long letters of his — all of them autobiographic. These are: 

1. The Meiningen Letter just mentioned, which is the chief 
document. It breaks off suddenly about the year 1815. 

2. The Krause Letter, so named from the philosopher 
Krause, to whom it was addressed in 1828. Partially 
translated by Michaelis and Moore. 

3. The Letter to Christoph Froebel_, written from a place 
near Frankfort, and dated March-April, 1807. This letter, 
therefore, is twenty years earlier than the two preceding. 
No translation of it in English is known to us. A peculiar 
letter: Sentimental and pre-sentimental. 

All three are to be found in the German edition of Wichard 
Lange, Friedrich FroeheVs gesammelte pddagogische Schriften, 
Erste Ahtheilung, Erster Band. Berlin, 1862, Verlag von 
Enslin. The first volume, we shall briefly refer to thus, 
Lange, I, and the second similarly, Lange, II, adding, of 
course, the page when necessary. 

Before each of the three letters Lange prints as a caption 
Alls einem Briefe, which must mean that he has chosen not 
to give the whole letter^ but to make certain omissions. The 
reason for such omissions he has not told, except in the case 
of one passage in the Krause Letter, and then the reason is 
not very satisfactory. From this cause (among others) there 
is a call for a new and complete edition of Froebel's works 
in German, though Lange did a great service in his day by 
his edition. 

We follow chiefly the Meiningen Letter as far as it goes. 

(455) 



456 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

A critical reading suggests the following conclusions about 
it: (rt) Quite a portion of it was composed before the year 
1827. (/>) The parts whicli refer to the Dulce of Meiningeu 
seem to be later interpolations for a special occasion. We 
think Ave notice two such interpolations in Lange 1, s S7, 
and more decidedly s. 78 (corresponding passages in trans- 
lation of Michaelis and Moore, p 9, and p. 56) Also" other 
passages of the kind may be noticed. Tlie interpolations 
belong to the year 1827 or therea])outs. (e) The style, dif- 
ferent from Froebel's style, is doubtless Lange's, though the 
facts are Froebel's. See later, note (20). 

(2) p. 3. This fact, not mentioned anywhere by Frederick 
Froebel, is given by Julius Froebel in his Ein Lehenslauf, 
s. 3, with an added experience in America. 

(3) p. 22 See, for instance, Hanschmann's very jejune 
account in his lengthy Life of Froebel, p. 20. 

Here we may state that this work of Hanschmann's is the 
standard biography of Froebel. The full title of it runs: 
Friedrich Froebel, Die Entivickehing seine?' Erziehungsidee in 
seinem Leben, von Alexander Bruno Hanschmann, Eisenach, 
Verlag von J. Bacmeister. The preface is dated May 1st, 
1874. 

A translation of this book has appeared in English, con- 
densed and " adapted," under the following title: The Kin- 
dergarden System, its Origin and Development as Seen in the 
Life of Frederick Froebel, by Fanny Franks, London, Swan 
Sonnenschein & Co. ; also Syracuse, N. Y., Bardeen. 

Our references to this book are always to the German 
original, as FroebeVs Leben, or at times The Life of Froebel 
by Hanschmann. 

(4) p. 28. The preceding section is derived from the 
Meiningeu Letter. Through Batsch (August Johann) Froebel. 
connects in Natural Science with Goethe, who had sent 
Batsch to Jena some fifteen years before this, and had 
directed his studies. See DUntzer's Life of Goethe, p. 343. 
Eng. Trans. 

(5) p. 30. The most elaborate account of Fichte and 
Schelling is given by Kuno Fischer in his History of Modern 
Philosophy . 



NOTES. 457 

(0) p. 41. The most complete work on the present subject 
is Haym's Die Bomantische Schttle. 

(7) p. 57. For Goethe's relation to Jena see especially his 
Briefwechsel rait Schiller, and other portions of his enormous 
correspondence. 

(8) p. 57. See her Ecminiscences, p. 121. 

(9) p. 59. The account of this rough experience is quite 
fully given in the Meiningen Letter, and is repeated by all 
tlie biographers. This brother, Traugott, though he resided 
at Stadt-Ilm, not far from Keilhau, and was physician and 
burgomaster there, falls completely out of Froel)ers life and 
career, in striking contrast with Christoph and Christian, 
the other brothers. Brother Christoph had also been 
suppressed by the father who seemingly had made him a 
clergyman against his will. Hence one ground of strong 
sympathy between him and Frederick. 

(10) p. 71. These '' Aphorisms " have been printed by 
Lange, I, 262. This title, however, (Aphorisms) is not 
Froebel's, but Lange's, who makes a selection from one of 
Froebel's pamphlets bearing the date of 1821. See a trans- 
lation of some of these Aphorisms, which show a stage of 
Froebel's development, in our Psychology of FroebeVs 
Play -gifts, p. 93. 

(11) p. 73. For the place of Novalis in the romantic move- 
ment, see Haym in Die Bomantische Schule. Carlyle first 
made the name of Novalis knowTi to English readers by his 
essay in his Miscellaneous Writings, first published in a mag- 
azine. Herder also belongs to those who would find in na- 
ture the movement of the human spirit, or the unity between 
nature and spirit — naturalizing spirit and spiritualizing 
nature. Such was the essence of his great work : Ideen zur 
Philosophic der Geschichte der Menschheit. Also a stimulating 
but scattered genius, like Schelling. As to Novalis, the state- 
ment of Haym is: " For the author of Ofterdingen (Novalis), 
nature is finally but a symbol of the inner world of man." 
See Die Bomantische Schule, s. 610.) 

(12) p. 87. See the appendix to Lange, I, 524, Aus einem 
Briefe an Christoph Froebel. Specially p. 535. Dated March- 
April, 1807. 



458 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

(13) p. 93. See the passage in the letter just cited, p. 533. 
This passage, however, is taken from a previous letter under 
date of August 24-26, 1805. 

(14) p. 95, cited in the Meiningen letter, Lange, I, 78. 
Pestalozzi's words: es geht ungehur. 

(15) p. 98. Correction: the special fact stated here is a 
mistake; it was Pestalozzi who wrote in Froebel's album 
the misspelt word, and not the reverse, as given in the text. 
See Hanschmann's Leben, p. 38, where the verse is printed. 
Still the general fact as stated in the text, in regard to 
Froebel's grammar and spelling, remains true, as his editors 
testify. 

(16) 107. Pestalozzi's description of the advent of Schmid 
is given in his booklet, Meine Lebenschicksale ( Weiice Band 
XV.), in whose composition Schmid's hand has been seen. 

Froebel was not present when Pestalozzi had his coffin 
brought into the school, and, taking his place beside it, 
made an address — a desperate utterance of his despair — 
saying that harmony has fled, discord and selfishness rule. 
This blood-curdling Alpine metaphor — for such seems to 
have been its purpose — ^ was enacted on New Year's, 1808. 
Froebel appeared at Yverdon some six months later. 

(17) p. 119. Sir William Jones had already compared 
Sanscrit with European tongues; also Frederick Schlegel 
had done the same. But the great work in Comparative 
Philology, Bopp's Comparative Grammar, had not yet been 
published. 

(18) p. 120. See Froebel's account in the Meiningen Letter, 
Lange, I, 103. But in the Krause Letter he seems to refer 
his first thoughts on " the universal spherical Law," to his 
Jena period. (Lange, I, 129). 

The significance of these reflections on the sphere and its 
law, and the place they occupy in Froebel's development of 
the kindergarden, are set forth in the author's work. The 
Psychology of FroebeVs Play-gifts, pp. 92-100. 

It may be here stated that Froebel's early occupation as a 
surveyor caused him to adjust nature to geometric lines and 
forms — a fact so prominent in the Gifts. Also the idea of 
Measure is paramount in surveying. 



NOTES. 459 

(19) p. 133. For the soldier-life of Froebel, see Meiningen 
Letter, to which the Krause Letter adds one or two facts. 
(Lange, I, 144.) 

The episode with Prohaska is not mentioned by Froebel, 
but is told in Laugethal's book, from which Ebers has 
taken copious information in his History of my Life. 
Evidently a forbidden incident of the war, at least not to be 
told to the Keilhau boys. Still Middendorf alludes to it in 
his conversations with the Baroness shortly after Froebel's 
death. (See her Beminiscences, p. 313.) 

The deeds of the Liitzow Corps were a constant theme of 
glorification afterwards at Keilhau. But Goldammer tells 
us, in his biography of Froebel, that this Corps utterly failed 
to fulfill the expectations formed of it at Berlin. Such was 
evidently the Berlin military opinion. 

For FroebeFs statement of the reasons why he became a 
soldier, see Autobiography. (Lauge, I, 107.) 

(20) p. 138. In the midst of this crystallographic period 
the Meiningen Letter comes suddenly to an end. The Krause 
Letter mentions the transition to Griesheim, and gives a 
brief abstract of the events at Keilhau till 1826. 

Lange says that he had to decipher laboriously the Mein- 
ingen Letter from an almost unreadable sketch; also '^my 
own style helped out here and there, though I have always 
stated the /ac« with the utmost fidelity." (I, p. 116.) In an- 
other passage at a different place Lange says: ^^ To the 
Autobiography I had to give a «ez(7/or?/i almost throughout." 
( Vorioo7't.) 

The Meiningen Letter (Autobiography) is usually said to 
have been written in 1827, hence the period of tlie Krause 
Letter and of the Education of Man. Yet its style (Ger- 
man) is wholly different from that of these two productions. 
Doubtless it has Lange' s style, for the most part. 

Froebel implies in the Krause Letter (p. 135), that he quit 
the Berlin University because he found it too narrow for 
him. 

(21) p. 148. See Lange I, 146, note, for Lange's report of 
Froebel's promise to the widow. 

For an account of Froebel's early scheme of a school in 



460 THE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

the country, see the plan published in Lange I, 539. This 
plan reaches back to 1807, if not before. 

(22) p. 151. There is a good deal of literature on early 
Keilhau, written by both pupils and . teachers of this period. 
The cited corrupt French word is taken from Hanschmann, 
p. 110. See also Julius Froebel in Erster Abschnitt of his 
Lebenslauf. 

(28) p. 161. Langethal also has written an account of his 
life, extracts from which the reader of English can see in 
George Ebers' Ilhtorn of my Life. 

(24) p. 173. Lange's statement of Froebel's promise (I, 
146) is of course written from Froe])6rs side. All the biog- 
raphers repeat simply what Lange has said. 

But the student of FroebePs life who wishes to see the full 
character of the man must read Julius Froebel' s statement 
in full: Erster Abschnitt of Ein Lebenslauf. A very good 
account of the Keilhau customs is also there given, with 
many characteristic anecdotes. 

So many men in America, particularly old German emi- 
grants, will say, " I have seen your Froebel here in this 
country." Whereupon follows stout discussion, which 
usually ends in the discovery that Julius Froebel is meant, 
who wandered nearly everywhere, making a line of acquaint- 
ances up and down the Mississippi Valley, along the Atlantic 
coast even to Central America, leaving a faint echo of the 
name Froebel almost around the globe. Old readers of the 
New York Tribune will recollect his letters, as he was one of 
its correspondents. 

(25) p. 179. Julius Froebel's book bears the date of July, 
1889 (Zurich), full seventy years after these events at 
Keilhau, Frederick Froebel having been married in 1818. 

Julius Froebel in his somewhat lengthy account never 
mentions either Middendorf or Langethal by name, though 
they were altogether the most prominent teachers after the 
uncle. Julius evidently disliked both for a reason which he 
well knew, though he cannot speak of it directly. He im- 
plies that all the other teachers were servile and truckling, 
except three whom he mentions by name — Schonbein, 
Michaelis, and especially Herzog — all of whom maintained 



NOTES. 461 

'' their critical freedom " against ^^ the autocrat," but had to 
leave for that reason. 

The disparaging anecdote about the lesson in Homer 
(p. 33) is told of Langethal doubtless, who was teacher of 
the classics. Julius must have been a pupil of both Mid- 
dendorf and Langethal for some six years. But he will not 
allow their names to pass his lips — or his pen. 

(2(>) p. 18(). It ought to be stated that there is a contra- 
diction between Lange and the Baroness in regard to the 
date of the death of Christian Froebel, who is alluded to on 
p. 184. Lange states that he died in 1851 (see his chrono- 
logical list of events of Froebel's life). But the Baroness 
says: "I found him in the wash-cellar; " this was during 
her visit at Keilhau in 1853 (see her Erinnerungen, p. 210). 
Her ocular evidence will have to outweigh that of Lange, 
though the latter married Christian Froebel's granddaughter. 

(27) p. 190. The report of Dr. Zeh is found in Lange I, 
p. 22. Says Lange, p. 23: ^^ Keilhau was publicly and in 
secret represented as a breeding-nest of demagoguery." 
Lange (same page) ascribes the falling-off of pupils ''^from 
GO down to 5 in 1829," to this cause. This helped, but there 
were other and deeper causes. 

(28) p. 197. See Ein Lebenslauf, s. 39. In the same 
book the reader will find '^ the negative element " presented 
strongly by one who shared in it. The reader should also 
consult the same book for the other side (kind, sympathetic) 
of the character of Herzog. 

Those who wish to see Froebel's view of Herzog can find 
an echo of it in Lange's note (I, p. 124), which makes very 
serious charges against Herzog' s character, stating among 
other things that he brought a strange woman into the Keil- 
hau families, " whom he declared to be his wife," but who, 
Lange implies, was not his wife. Then he, too, would not 
pay his debts and blamed Froebel for it, claiming money due 
him from Froebel. 

We hold that both the friendly and unfriendly witnesses 
have presented the two opposite sides of one personality, 
and that the facts of both can be accepted and united into 
one character, in the case of Herzog. 



462 THE LIFE OF FEOEBEL, 

(29) p. 205. We have already noticed that Julius Froebel 
will not mention by name his old teachers, Middendorf and 
Langethal, doubtless regarding them (especially Lange- 
thal) as the prime instigators of the wrong done his mother, 
or of what he deems her wrong. 

(30) p. 210. There is no attempt in this section to give 
anything like a complete account of the Education of Man. 
This would require a long dissertation, which would inter- 
rupt too much the movement of the narrative. Still, the 
book deserves a thorough-going critique, which would put 
it into its right place in the development of Froebel's life, 
and correct many misunderstandings. It may be added 
here that the author has elaborated such a critique, and 
hopes to print it in the near future. 

(31) p. 215. See the Krause Letter, dated Keilhau, March 
24:th, 1828, Lange, I, 125, for the allusion to the withdrawal 
of his nephews. There is no English translation as far as 
we know, of the first and most important part of the Krause 
Letter — the ^^Fate-compelling" part. The translators of 
the Autobiography (Michaelis and Moore) have strangely 
omitted that portion. 

(32) p. 221. Lange's note to the Krause Letter, I, 124. 

(33) p. 226. The prefatory note to the Krause Letter by 
Lange, I, 119. 

(34) p. 232. This '^ loftier dignity" is an expression that 
puzzled Lange and the members of the Keilhau circle, as 
he says (I, 126, note). Yet to us the context gives a very 
distinct meaning. Undoubtedly the whole letter is difficult 
(especially the first part of it), unless the reader penetrates 
to the distressed soul of Froebel hiding its woes from a 
vulgar stare in their very expression. 

(35) p. 240. The appearance of Froebel and Middendorf at 
Gottingen is described by Hanschmann, FroebeVs Lehen, 
p. 152, from the account of an eye-witness. 

(36) p. 244, The documents pertaining to the institute at 
Helba are given by Lange, I, 399-417. They consist of a 
prospectus and a program of studies. Both are worthy of 
study by the educator, as they show that many ideas sup- 



J^OTES. 463 

posed to be bran-new in these days had already been thought 
out by Froebel, and some of them transcended. 

(37) p. 251. The announcement of the Institute at War- 
tensee is printed by Lange, I, 423, and signed by both Froebel 
and Schnyder. See also Hanschmann's Leben, Achter 
Ahschnitt. 

(38) p. 260. See Barop's account, given in Lange, I, 8. 

(39) p. 262. These facts are told by Juluis Froebel in his 
book, Eiii Lebenslauf. 

(40) p. 283. For the development of the Second or Origi- 
native Play-gift, as well as its place in his system and in his 
life's unfolding, see our Psychology of FroebeVs Play-gifts, 
beginning on p. 49. For the historical development specially 
see p. 92. The details there given we cannot repeat here. 

(41) p. 285. Says Wichard Lange, editor of Froebel's 
Works, in reference to this essay on Lebenserneuerung : 
" It was not written for publication originally, but was in- 
tended to be imparted to the members of his educational 
circle through the manuscript. In my opinion it ought not 
to be left out of his works, as its content is characteristic in 
spite of many peculiarities of form. It is known in Froebel's 
family why he designated the beginniUj^ of the year, 1836, 
as the starting-point of a new epoch. After mature deliber- 
ation, however, I must decline to publish the motive which 
hovered before his mind." 

Thus Lange implies that a personal motive lay behind this 
piece of writing, which motive does not appear on the 
surface. Some family secret seems alluded to, which Lange, 
being connected with the Froebel circle both by friendship 
and by marriage, declares himself unwilling to divulge. 

Still one cannot help observing that Lange takes the best 
method of rousing the reader's curiosity in the foregoing 
passage, which is printed prominently in the preface {Band 
II, Erste Abtheilung) to the volume containing Froebel's 
Education of Man, in Lange's edition of Froebel's Works. 
Lange certainly intended the reader to conjecture what that 
secret was, otherwise he would have kept silent. Moreover 
it is manifest that Lange considered the matter not in the 



464 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

light of idle gossip, but as a powerful "motive" whicb 
stirred Froebel to a new activity in life. 

There are three printed documents pertaining to this 
Burgdorf period. As they bear a common stamp in style and 
in thought we note them separately. 

1. The essay entitled Lifers Benewal {Lebenserneiieinmg) 
which is printed in Lange's edition of Froebel' s Works, 
Part I, Vol. II. As far as we are aware, there is no English 
translation. 

The first sentence declares " the annunciation of a new 
spring time of Life and of Humanity which is now sounding 
loud and distinct " in and through all the events of ^roebel's 
days. 

" It is thou, Benewal and Bejuvenation of all Life, who 
art speaking so clearly and definitely to my spirit." Note 
this form of address in the second person, which is very 
common in the present essay. '^ Thou, Time, in which 
Divinity blossoms out of Humanity, as the perfect woman 
shines forth from the Maria of a Raphael." Moreover, 
this is '^ a Time of Lilies." Thus he connects this period 
and its event with the Mother and Child Divine. 

Froebel next proceeds to a kind of glorification or deifica- 
tion of the Family, which is the means w' hereby man becomes 
conscious of the Divine. Moreover the Family is a har- 
monious trinity in unity — three yet one — father, mother, 
child. Through the earliest portions of the essay runs an 
exalted, tender, mystical view of motherhood. Herein the 
student will see one inspiring cause of the Mother Play- 
songs. The latter part of the essay drops down in tone 
when the author passes to other matters, as lawj people, 
state, emigration. 

2. Another production composed in a very similar vein 
and during this period is a letter of Froebel to Adolph Frank- 
enberg, written at the midnight hour when the old year, 1835, 
was passing into the new year, 1830, wiiich fact is made 
symbolic of birth and renewal. Froebel speaks of this past 
year (1835) " as a remarkable year in the history of my most 
intimate personal life," then he adds, " and possibly in the 
history of tlie universal life of humanity." He seems to be 



NOTES. 4G5 

conscious of the importance and the greatness of the seed- 
thought which has appeared during the year, and he pro- 
phetically looks forward to " the harvest of the sowing of 
1835." Yet all this seems to be coupled with another event. 
^' I have seen the year 1-83G approaching full of hope for a 
good while ; just why, think you? Because the inner develop- 
ment of life demands necessarily an outer, because every- 
thing in God's world unfolds according to fixed laws so that 
it must necessarily appear at a certain time in accord with 
these laws." And so on, with other significant allusions in 
the same letter, which is printed by Hanschmann in his 
FroeheVs Lehen, pp. 2G2-8. 

3. Another very important document for showing the mood 
and thought of the Burgdorf period, is the cyclus of seven 
^' Mother-songs " prefixed to the book of Mother Play-songs. 
Tlie first one has as its theme " the mother in the feeling of 
her life's unification with her child," in whom she sees mani- 
fested " Faith, Love, Hope," or the three celestial virtues of 
the medieval Church (see Dante's Paradiso, passim). As 
the Christ-child'^' rays out" these virtues to the Madonna, 
so the human child now" reveals them to its mother (and 
father too, perchance). Thus the child has become a kind 
of mediator between God and man, revealing the Divine in 
the human and to the human. 

The second of these '^ mother-songs " sets forth "the 
emotions of the mother on contemplating her first-bom." 
She is chosen " for the highest human dignity," having given 
birth to "an angelic child (Engelskind),'''' who is the great 
bond of Love between husband and wife, man and fellow- 
man, God and man. 

Plainly Froebel has taken up the medieval conception of 
the Mother and Child, and transformed it into the basis for 
a new adoration, or a new kind of cult, which is secular, 
and means the complete education of both. A deeply relig- 
ious, but not much of a theological element is here; no vir- 
ginity, no immaculate conception, no special divine sonship ; 
the latter is now universal, every child is the son of God, 
and the Holy Family is every family. 

Still it is worth w hile to notice the connection with the old 

30 . 



466 TRE LIFE OF FROEBEL. 

conception of Mariolatiy out of which the new Madonna 
and Child have evolved themselves — an evolution which 
bears the strongest traces of its origin. 

In all this Froebel shows his kinship with medieval Ger- 
man mysticism (Tauler^ Eckart)^ which is so deeply 
grounded in the Teutonic spirit. Even Italian Bonaventura 
we have to think of also, in his ecstatic description of the 
Blessed Virgin {Vita Beaton Virginis). Nor can we forget 
Dante's exalted hymn to the same at the end of the Divina 
Commedia. 

These Mutterlieder (mother-songs) were probably written 
during the Burgdorf period^, though not printed till seven or 
eight years later, with the Book of Mother Play-songs, whose 
primal germ and impulse they manifest. It is also our opin- 
ion that they show or at least suggest the first form which 
the Mother Play-song took in Froebel' s soul, under the im- 
mediate stress of his emotion. 

4. To the three foregoing printed documents from Froe- 
bel' s pen, we shall add the following translation from Barop 
who knew all the circumstances of the Burgdorf period: 
'^ His (Froebel's) experiences had convinced him that edu- 
cation in the school lacked all right foundation without a 
reform of education in the family. * * * The necessity 
of training the mother advanced into the foreground of the 
soul. * * * The Mothers'' Book (Pestalozzi's) he pro- 
posed to replace by a new hand-book for w^omen. An ex- 
ternal circumstance intervened to urge him forwards. His 
wife took sick in the most alarming way, and, her illness 
continuing, the doctors advised a complete change from the 
keen mountain air of Switzerland. Then he resolved to go 
back to Berlin." 

Madam Henriette Froebel never fully recovered from her 
Burgdorf 'illness, but died some three years afterwards at 
Blankenburg. (The above account of Barop's is printed in 
Lange's edition of Froebel's Works, I, 1, p. 12.) 

(42) p. 293. We may state here that there is no intention 
of giving a full exposition of the Play-gift and the Play-song 
in this Life of Froebel. Those who desire to know the 
author's detailed view on these two subjects are referred to 



NOTES. 467 

his two special works: The Commentary on FroebeVs Mother 
Flay-songs, aud The Psychology ofFrorbers Play-gifts. 

After Froebel's departure from Burj^dorf, his place was 
taken by Langethal, into whose family came Sidonia, 
daughter of the philosopher Krause, betrothed to young Von 
Leouhardi, who was seeking to engraft the Krause philosophy 
on the Froebelian circle. Krause himself had died at Munich 
in 1832. Langethal will later go to Berne as principal of a 
Young Ladies' School^ much to Froebel's disgust. 

(43) p. 306. The original passage in which this famous 
incident is recounted is found in Lange I, 18. Barop gives 
no date for the incident, but it probably occurred in the year 
1839, certainly some time before the Festival of 1840, one 
purpose of which was to bring this name into general use. 

(44) p. 312. George Ebers in his History of my Life has 
celebrated the teaching power of Langethal, after the latter's 
return to Keilhau in the early Fifties. As to the Blanken- 
burg Festival a very full account is published by Lange, II, 
415. It is worthy of study, as it shows everywhere an 
educative purpose, though this is not so distinct and pure 
as in the later Altenstein Festival in 1850, which had no 
financial scheme playing into its educational object. Then 
the latter Festival has the advantage of being described by 
both Froebel and by the Baroness, the latter being a 
participant also. 

(45) p. 318. The documents pertaining to this Blankenburg 
bond-scheme are given in Lange, II, 456. See translation in 
Poesche's Letters of Froebel, p. 165. In the same collection 
of Letters are numerous allusions to the Festival and its 
consequences. 

(46) p. 327. An interesting account of Unger is given by 
George Ebers in his History of my Life. Unger was still 
instructor in drawing at Keilhau in Ebers' time, some ten 
years after the period of the Book of Mother Play-songs. 
Many detached traits of Unger are scattered in essays, 
articles, reminiscences, etc., pertaining to Keilhau and 
Froebel. 

(47) p. 330. For a more detailed and connected account of 
the total evolution of Froebel's Mother Play-songs, the 



468 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

reader is referred to the History and Genesis of the Play-song 
printed as an introduction to the author's Commentary on 
Froebel's Mother Play-songs (new edition of 1900). 

The church scene in No. 48, of the Book of Mother Play- 
songs may be a reproduction of the second part (the re- 
ligious part) of this Blaukenburg Festival. The artist 
Unger was doubtless present. The other church scene (in 
No, 22) in which the two grandmothers have a leading place, 
is probably taken from the experience of early Keilhau with 
its two old women. (See preceding, Book II, Chap. II, pp. 
150, 157, 163, etc.) 

In a letter dated Dec. 9th, 1842 (Poesche, FroeheVs Letters, 
p. 123, Eng. Trans.), Froebel writes: ^^ I hope that it (the 
Book of Mother Pla3-songs) will be handed dow^n from 
mother to children's children as the book of the family." 
One day a young lady of German extraction, a pupil of the 
Kindergarden College in Chicago, brought to the author (her 
teacher) and showed to him the treasure which she deemed 
the most precious heirloom of her family. It was a line copy 
of the original edition of Froebel's Mother Play-songs, 
which had descended to her from her mother's mother. A 
striking instance of the realization of Froebel's words, on 
the other side of the ocean, in a city which did not exist in 
his time. 

In the same letter we catch glimpses of Froebel in his 
workshop, as in the following: " From the new year (1843) 
onwards I shall devote myself with increased power to the 
working-out and development of the collected materials 
before me." * * * f'^ The ball-games are nearly ready 
for the press." * * * ^^ The lithographers have finished 
the drawings for the Sixth Gift." * * * ^^ The Book of 
Mother Play-songs we hope to have out by the end of next 
summer (1843) but you know what artists are (Unger), how 
they delay, etc." * * * "I labor unceasingly at perfect- 
ing the ivhole system.''^ 

(48) p. 350. These wanderings of Froebel, as given in this 
section, are put together quite fully by Hanschmann, Froe- 
heVs Lehen, Zehnter Abschnitt. See also Poesche, FroeheVs 
Letters for the same period. 



NOTES. 469 

A document which attests Froebel's occupation with 
Men's Unions at this time, is printed by Lange, II, 484. It 
contains a prospectus (dated Feb., 1845), and by-laws for 
such a Union. 

(49) p. 353. See Julius Froebel's Ein Lebenslauf, !_, s. 236. 
From Vienna lie came on a railroad train to Dresden while 
his uncle was there lecturing, but the two kept aloof from 
each other, and may not have known of each other's pres- 
ence in that city. Julius Froebel soon went to Frankfort 
and delivered to the National Assembly a report of the 
occurrences at Vienna. This report was printed and circu- 
lated far and wide, helping still further to give to the name 
Froebel a revolutionary distinction. 

(50) p. 3(5(). The story of Luise Levin's love for Froebel 
has been repeatedly told by herself in letter and conversa- 
tion. The English reader can find an account emanating 
from her in Heinemann's edition of Froebel's Letters. 

(51) p. 386. The preceding account is drawn from the 
Baroness' Erinnenuigen an Frederick Froebel, a book well 
known in the English translation of Mrs. Mann (liemiu- 
iscences of Froebel, Boston: Lee and Shepherd). The 
Baroness has here produced her best book; in fact, it is the 
best literary book which the German Kindergarden has yet 
sent forth. They are the Reminiscences of Froebel, but 
even more deeply the Reminiscences of herself, though not 
intended to be so. Her object was to erect a monument to 
Froebel, but an equally great monument she has erected to 

■ herself. 

From now on we shall use this book without much special 
citation. It should always be remembered, however, by the 
student that these Beminiscences embrace only the last three 
years of Froebel's life, he being 67 years old when he first 
met the Baroness. 

(52) p. 395. The story of Froebel at Hamburg has been 
the subject of a good deal of literature and also of tradition. 
Both sides have not failed to express themselves. The 
various Lives of Froebel have narrated it, Hanschmaun quite 
fully, Goldammer more briefly. 



470 THE LIFE OF FBOEBEL. 

(53) p. 411. See the Erinnerungen, s. 39 and 41, as well 
as the whole sectiou in the same book. 

(54) p. 420. This Altenstein festival has the advantage of 
being described very fully by both the Baroness and by 
Froebel (Lange, II, 527). That of tlie Baroness is translated 
in the Beminiscences ; Froebel's account, as far as we are 
aware, is untranslated. We must repeat that for us it is a 
very significant piece of work, whose purport is by no means 
yet realized. The popular festival, like the play of children, 
can also be made educative. 

On p. 428, the extract from the edict is derived from 
Hanschmann, FroeheVs Leben, s. 422. - The part of the Bar- 
oness at this eventful time is taken from her oft-cited book. 
Scattered allusions in Julius Froebel's Ein Lebenslauf hint his 
view of the decree and its cause. This Von Eaumer is not 
the well-known author of the History of Pedagogy. 



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